


Human

by Ourliazo



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, BAMF!Hibari Kyouya - even more than usual, Completely AU, Everyone Loves Kyouya, Gen, I Legitimately Don't Know What's Happening, Like I Can't Emphasise Enough How OP Kyouya Is, Mostly Because Of How Destructive He Can Be, humour and fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2018-10-19 16:19:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 40,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10643556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ourliazo/pseuds/Ourliazo
Summary: In a world full of dangerous supernatural creatures, Kyouya is simply a human. Except he's still Hibari Kyouya so everyone is terrified as he takes it upon himself to fight every type of supernatural creature there is.





	1. Chapter 1

Kyouya's brothers have their own herbivores.

Fon, the oldest brother, has his self-styled Arcobaleno. He's been in Hell for as long as Kyouya can remember, only visiting Earth for a few days per year before heading back down to take charge of Hell again.

Alaude, the middle brother, has the group called Vongola. He's also been away long enough that Kyouya doesn’t know when he first left. He stays in Heaven and keeps the peace up there.

Their parents were horrified when Fon left and angry when Alaude did, immediately pulling a young Kyouya from training and sending him off to the least supernaturally populated town they could find. 

He's lived there ever since, strictly ordered to never leave or have contact with the Otherside, on the off chance he gets caught up in the madness like his brothers did. They even sealed him into the town, painting shackles onto his skin so he can’t cross the border.

He was young then, and didn’t understand what the symbols meant. Still doesn’t, not really, since he’s not allowed to have access to the translations, but it’s rather obvious what they do. Whenever he tries to leave, the symbols on his skin flare gold and seep black and he can’t take a step further past the invisible line.

The only time he’s allowed out is when the two older brothers arrive on earth, and all of the Hibari family -a clan of supernatural hunters who discipline those that reveal the Otherside or commit crimes- gather to welcome them back.

It’s not because the brothers are missed that the family greets them. It’s so information on the two largest supernatural threats can be gathered and pried out of the brothers.

When the two brothers aren't in ear shot, the adults start gossiping and insulting them for being so shameful as to make friends with the creatures and then even leave Earth. They insist on repeatedly telling Kyouya to never get involved with the supernatural.

He couldn’t even if he wanted to, because Kyouya is trapped and that fact hovers at the back of his mind every minute of every day.

It would be so easy to just threaten another family member until they unlocked the shackles, but he took an oath when he started hunter training like everyone does. He agreed to never cause harm to another Hibari so any threats he made would fall through.

It’s not like he wants to start trouble either; revenge isn’t something Kyouya is willing to waste time on. He just needs to leave Namimori and get away from the cage he’s locked into. Even with the family gatherings, he’s tethered to another anchor point in the main compound, just switching out one prison for another.

It makes him sick, being forced to pace the border of his cage like a feral animal. He loves Namimori but seeing it every day and knowing that he isn’t staying by choice just makes him want to tear it all apart from the largest building to the smallest animal.

He wants to leave nothing but rubble and corpses and fire and broken things, just so they’ll scream like he does. Maybe if he paints a cry for help large enough on the ground someone will see it. Maybe if the words are red enough with blood someone will come for him.

Kyouya can’t take it anymore. He might be weak and pathetic for this but he can’t stay trapped any longer or he’ll do something disgusting.

Fortunately, Kyouya has two brothers. Brothers that never speak with the Hibari clan outside of bland pleasantries. Brothers that are ignorant to his situation. Brothers that have more than enough knowledge to erase the ink.

Kyouya has a plan, yes, and if anyone dares to get in the way he'll bite them to death.

* * *

Fon steps outside and lets out a relived breath as soon as the door closes behind him. It’s exhausting to deal with the family, because they’re incredibly prejudiced against the supernatural.

Most demons are disgusting, horrible creatures that lust after blood. However, that’s for the lower levels who only know pain, still clinging to their previous human lives. It’s no wonder they’re obsessed with causing harm considering what they remember tended to include being desperate enough to sell their soul in the first place, or being bad enough to get the VIP treatment.

Fon's friends aren’t like that. They're the strongest demons in Hell and while they're willing to defend themselves to the point of fatality, he's not ashamed of them because he does the exact same. Hell is dangerous and you have to be constantly aware of any demon looking to advance in the hierarchy by killing you.

Not unlike Earth.

Fon tucks his hands into his long red sleeves, turning left and making his way down the hall. He steps around a corner and has to make an abrupt twirl to the side to avoid a running Alaude who almost crashes into him. The blond gives Fon a look of panic and the sound of a woman calling for the younger sweeps down the hall.

Fon immediately recognises the voice of their mother in 'I’m disappointed and I’m going to make sure you know it' mode.

He grabs Alaude’s hand and they both sprint down the hall Fon came from. They race past the double doors holding the large room most of the clan is centred in and continue with a few twists and turns.

They both hear their mother’s footsteps pounding against the wooden floor behind them and know with a certainty that she’s catching up. The Hibari clan might not technically be born with Otherside blood but the training ensures they can be just as powerful as any creature.

They skid around a left turn and blink when one of the doors opens and Kyouya looks out, gesturing them inside. They shoot into the room like the hallway is on fire and whirl around, frantically gesturing for Kyouya to close the door.

The teen just tilts his head to the side and looks at them with innocence, the gaping entry way looming behind as the footsteps get louder.

“What do you want?” Alaude hisses out in a low voice to not catch their pursuer’s attention.

“Whatever it is, we can talk later,” Fon joins in with a whisper.

Kyouya turns to glance out to the hallway, opening his mouth to call for the woman. Fon and Alaude shoot forwards, the demon tamer snatching up the youngest and clamping a hand over his mouth while the angel keeper shuts the door as fast as he can while still being quiet.

“Fine!” Alaude grits out. “Anything you want, just stay silent.”

Kyouya nods, partly restricted by the hand on his mouth but the gesture is clear. Fon hesitantly releases him but stays close as their mother storms past the door. Soon the sound of her footsteps vanishes entirely.

Kyouya rolls his eyes because he doesn’t even know these two and he still guessed their fear quick enough to set up the chase.

“Alright,” Alaude says slowly in a normal volume. “She's gone.”

Fon’s tense body unwinds and he stumbles over to one of the couches arranged in a loose circle in the middle of the spare room. He drops down and sighs, followed closely by Alaude.

Kyouya is more graceful as he takes a seat on the one with his jacket slung over the couch arm and folds his hands in his lap. He's not uncomfortable in his brothers’ presence, but he's more formal than strictly necessary with family because these two are veritable strangers to him.

“I have a proposition for you,” Kyouya begins and the two older men immediately focus on him. “You will erase the symbols on me and I will not inform mother of where you are.”

“You won't get two steps from this room,” Alaude promises darkly.

“Symbols?” Fon murmurs.

The two responses are focused on different parts of Kyouya’s offer but at least they aren't immediately dismissing him.

“There are inked symbols on me,” Kyouya says, replying to Fon since the man is heading in the right direction. “They’re inactive right now and invisible.”

“Show me,” Fon orders as he shifts to lean forward in his seat.

Kyouya calmly rolls up his sleeves and holds out his arms, wrists up. “They’re here,” he murmurs. “Around my wrists.”

Fon stands and makes his way to Kyouya’s seat, crouching in front of the teenager and pressing a hand against Kyouya’s forearm before whispering words of power that sound like metal being crushed. Symbols fade into view, turning pitch black in small, broken segments across Kyouya’s wrists.

Fon frowns a little because they don't make any sense. He takes Kyouya’s hand and rotates his arm to read all the way through. It's not written with correct grammar and a lot of the nouns are missing.

The Hibari clan use angel and demon symbols more than any other language, so it’s not unusual to see the black markings, but the empty spaces say another portion is missing.

Alaude moves over then, crouching beside Fon at Kyouya’s feet to grab a hand himself. The blonde speaks in song, forming a light-hearted melody that swirls about the room. More symbols flare to life in gold and connect the fragmented words of the black writing.

The weaving of enchantments says a master of both the demonic and angelic arts wrote it. It’s brilliant in its complexity. The two languages would normally clash since even identical words never mean the same thing. The use of ‘light’ for angels means ‘cleanse’ while ‘light’ for demons means ‘pain’ or ‘stay away’ depending on the context.

Fon frowns. It’s no wonder Kyouya needs help since this mastery of runes isn’t taught to normal hunters. People with this level of skill had to have learnt it over decades. Fortunately, Fon and Alaude both have more than enough experience.

“Binding,” Alaude grumbles. “I hate binding.”

“There’s a receptor that these connect to,” Fon says. “They must really want to keep you away from something. Do you know where the second half is?”

Kyouya shakes his head, because angels can sense spoken lies and Alaude has been around the feathered soldiers long enough to pick up a few tricks.

“That’s fine,” the blonde states. “I won’t need it.”

Alaude encircles Kyouya’s wrist entirely with a hand and starts up a wordless song that sounds something like sunlight. The symbols start glowing and the shine continues building until the light seeps past Alaude’s fingers and becomes blinding.

Fon wraps his fingers around Kyouya’s other wrist and hisses out something like a guttural string of swearwords. The black symbols don't glow, not quite, instead they start giving off wisps of shadows that lazily curl into the air. The longer Fon speaks the faster the tendrils move until they’re thrashing madly.

The two men stop abruptly and it feels like something in Kyouya snaps as the symbols suddenly vanish. Fon lets go and sits back on his heels with a smug smile.

Alaude, however, stands and wrenches Kyouya off the couch with the blonde’s grip still on the younger’s wrist. The blonde drags Kyouya over to the exit, snatching the black high collar jacket from the couch as he passes and opens the door.

“Don’t tell mother we're here,” Alaude says with a threat hidden in the words, before throwing Kyouya out and tossing the jacket after the teenager.

Kyouya stumbles from the harsh push but gets his balance quickly enough to catch the clothing. The door shuts firmly behind him and Kyouya is left in the hallway, gripping his jacket and staring down at his wrists.

A smile spreads across his lips.

He easily swings the jacket onto his shoulders, turning to stroll down the hallway as he unrolls his shirt sleeves. He continues past the many doors and the occasional wandering Hibari or staff member, and walks straight out of the compound.

He’s free for the first time in years and he’s not going to waste it.


	2. Chapter 2

Kyouya pauses just long enough to inform his mother by text that one of his uncles took him back to Namimori as well as mail the phone there in case she checks the GPS.

His mother is always country hopping as a full-time leader of the hunters and she won't bother to check too closely, so he has two months at the most before she notices. She tends to visit for a few hours every couple of months and they'll spar before she moves on, therefore he'll just drop in when she checks and then leave once more. Simple enough.

As soon as the phone is on its way, he steps onto a plane headed for the most supernaturally populated country. It's not because he actually wants to meet the creatures, it's more because he's been told he can't, so of course he does.

He immediately runs into trouble.

Before he was pulled out of hunter training he only had the basics down, and everything else he taught himself with the meagre information he could smuggle into Namimori.

So while it's true that Kyouya may not be able to name the biggest threats or command with words of power fluently, it's also true that he can still take a few low level herbivores whose weakness is as painfully blatant as their race.

He arrives in Italy and straight away encounters a noisy group of fallen who he then bites to death.

* * *

 

Squalo spirals out of control as he plunges through the sickly green clouds that look about to spit acid rain, his form nothing more than a dark, writhing mass of shadow as he breaks through the barrier between worlds and enters the poisonous atmosphere of the Underworld.

Belphegor, Levi and Lussuria are falling along with him, all bleeding wisps of dark red shadow from their injuries.

They hit the ground and crater the rust red rocks, their fall obliterating the large hill they landed on and the shockwave washes over the land with harsh winds and dust. They all feel the few points of life scattered around the desolate landscape blink out, killed from a mixture of the Varia landing and their overwhelming rage.

"Fuck," Squalo snarls in the guttural demon language as he hauls himself up out of the deep hole his body made when it impacted the ground. "What the fuck was that?"

"An angel," Belphegor spits out, staggering to his feet as the shadows fall off him and his body solidifies. "What else could take us down?"

Lussuria rises slowly, his legs threatening to give out. "Not even angel made wounds last the trip to hell," he says through gritted teeth. "Why are we still injured?"

The worst hits they took are now heavy bruising and the lightest are completely gone, but nothing should have lasted the trip through worlds. When you cross bridges you move bodies, shedding everything that you are and becoming something entirely different.

That's why dissimilar races can only use the portals their kind can make, unless someone powerful is with them and controlling the transport. It's not often seen, both because the races don't really get along and because of the experience necessary. It also takes immense power and concentration to keep a preferred body or even just a feature, which adds to the strain.

The different forms in each world have variable strengths and weaknesses as well. If someone threw holy water on a demon in Hell, they'd laugh and crush the offender's skull. On Earth it'll burn like the strongest acid, and in Heaven more than a few drops is fatal.

Levi huffs and lurches up, but falls to a knee when his body fails. "Boss will know what it was."

The other three still abruptly. If they went to Xanxus with the news that they were beaten by someone unknown -someone not an Alpha or a Guardian- they'll get slaughtered.

The Varia are the strongest fallen in all the worlds. Their bodies hold the weaknesses of both demons and angles yet they also have the strengths of both races. The strongest of them, the Alpha fallen, is a man called Xanxus.

Xanxus, if he fights seriously, is a complete monster on the battlefield, able to take on any Alpha suicidal enough to challenge him. If he was actually serious, Squalo isn't sure the Arcobaleno would be able to take Xanxus down.

"Shit," Squalo grumbles. "We have to tell him."

"Not everything," Belphegor cuts in. "We tell him about the creature and we make guesses about its strength, but we leave out the fight."

"I can heal the rest," Lussuria chimes in. "The wounds are small."

The three turn to Levi only to see him already gone.

"Catch the asshole!" Squalo roars and his body snaps to a heavy mist, shooting up from the ground and developing a vicious spiral as he flies towards the Varia compound.

Lussuria and Belphegor take off as well but Levi moves as fast as lightning when his precious boss is involved.

They slam in through the doors, the darkness melting away into a solid form, and come to a halt as Xanxus looks up from his wine glass to pin them with a glare.

Levi kneels at the side of Xanxus' throne, gazing up at the Varia boss with an awed look. "So what was it, boss?" Levi asks. "An angel?"

Xanxus ignores the man and instead sweeps his eyes across the three, taking in the bruises and small cuts. "What did it look like?" he asks calmly, taking a sip of wine.

"Nothing," Squalo replies back. He sighs and shakes his head. "There were no defining features; no tails or sharp teeth, in fact it didn't change forms at all throughout the entire fight. No bragging about its race or its leader or becoming an Alpha either. No obvious prejudice against fallen or demons - and fuck, but I don't think it knew our names."

Xanxus stills. "How did it fight?"

"No words of power," Lussuria speaks up. "It didn't say much at all, in fact. No chants or symbols or spells or summoning. It moved fast but not like a vampire, and gracefully but not like a fey. All it had was two metal batons, but they weren't even made of titanium."

Titanium, all those aware of the supernatural know, is the one substance that will affect all non-humans. It could turn a simple, pesky bullet into something that actually pierces skin, and could burn the fey while it purified spirits.

Most weapons are made of titanium with a different substance for the grip. Squalo's sword, Lussuria's knee plate, Bel's knives and Xanxus' bullets - all of it is titanium.

The fact that it didn't need the metal to forcefully send the Varia commanders on retreat meant its threat level rose exponentially.

Xanxus uncrossed his ankles from the footstool and sat up in his chair, placing the glass on a side table. "How old?"

"I don't know," Belphegor shrugs. "It didn't have the aura of age or supernatural power. It had no traditional markings or decorations to prove how old it was either. It didn't use fighting moves that could be traced to a specific era or race or country or dimension, and it didn't speak enough for me to get a read on its competency with colloquial speech."

Xanxus growls and stands, stalking over to them. "You keep saying 'it wasn't' or 'it didn't have'. What  _do_  you know about it?"

"It was a boy," Levi says, still kneeling beside the chair.

Xanxus whips around. "Excuse me?"

"It looked like a boy," Levi corrects. "Maybe fifteen to seventeen, wearing clothes like it just stepped out of school and had a red armband with a bird sown in gold thread. Belphegor accidentally cut the armband and it said 'I'll bite you to death' before taking out its weapons."

Xanxus stares for a moment before turning to the other three who nod in confirmation.

"And boss," Squalo begins quietly. "It had the face of the Arcobaleno Fon and the Vongola Alaude."

The Varia boss grits his teeth. "Hunter then?" he snaps out.

"He didn't use any hunter tricks," Belphegor says with a head shake. "We said before, no chants or symbols, and even hunters have a supernatural aura because they're using the creatures they capture as steroids."

"Are you telling me that it was a fucking human?" Xanxus snarls. "That it was a  _little boy_  without anything to help but two fucking tonfa that  _aren't even titanium_?"

No one replies.

"Get out," Xanxus says quietly and then roars. " _Get the fuck out!"_

They jolt and immediately make their way outside. The door shuts without anyone touching it and the symbols on the wood grow dark and give off wisps of shadow. No sound gets through and the four give each other looks.

"Well, you all messed up."

They whirl around to find Fran standing there with hands in his pockets and a bored look on the man's face.

* * *

 

Xanxus flicks his hand and the door slams behind the four, the symbols awakening according to his command.

He exhales out a slow breath and lets the smirk show on his face.

Arcobaleno's Fon and Vongola's Alaude are hunters from the Hibari family. Stretching all the way back to when the supernatural first stepped on Earth, the Hibari were right there as strict enforcers.

Hunters use whatever they can get their hands on to get a boost over their opponents. Symbols and words of power from demons and angels, injections of pure werewolf strength or glasses made of fey eyes to see past illusions, clothes drenched in dead man's blood and weapons of titanium.

Hunters are just as dangerous as the supernatural, they have to be to keep up. In fact more than twelve centuries ago they were officially classed as supernatural, too warped by their tricks to be classed as human with how much the bodies change during their training.

However, until the Alpha hunter's sons, everyone thought them barely able to keep up with the more powerful races, simply not good enough to push past that barrier into the big leagues.

Then Fon stepped in one day when one of the strongest demons got loud on Earth and he actually forced them back. Then another Arcobaleno goes up top to see and Fon pushed them back down. Again and again, every time, he could match up.

It caused a tidal wave in the supernatural circles.

The demons are different from most supernatural hierarchies since it's not just one Alpha that rules them but eight equally strong monsters. So of course everyone was sceptical but the stories spread and soon Fon actually joined the Underworld.

There was a sudden influx of spying missions, hundreds of creatures sent to observe the hunters, all trying to answer the same question: were they holding back their strength or was Fon just a different breed altogether?

The Vongola right hand got a bit too slack in his discretion and strayed too close to the other brother, promptly getting his ass handed to him. Alaude was suddenly there, just as powerful as his brother, and once more stories spread.

There were whispers of a third brother, much younger and barely able to speak without a childish lisp, but no one could find any record of him much less catch a glimpse and the rumours died down.

The eyes of the Otherside tracked the two brothers, watching them take on bigger roles in the Arcobaleno and Vongola. Over time, with how much angelic and demonic magic used by them, their bodies started to be converted.

They're half hunter and half supernatural at this point, and they're only growing stronger with the change, developing supernatural strengths with none of the weaknesses. The two men are both feared and looked up to for their insane strength as well as genius minds.

And now Xanxus has a lock on the unknown third brother.

The Varia boss throws back his head and laughs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like world building a lot, and this story will let me do that, but please tell me if it gets boring.
> 
> Also, before any of you ask, everyone but Kyouya looks like an adult. I don't know why.


	3. Chapter 3

Kyouya grimaces at his heavy wounds and bloodied clothes. The group of noisy supernatural were stronger than he first thought, but he's more annoyed that they ran away than at his injuries.

He frowns as he tucks away his tonfa, because the grey blood is going to stick to the holsters and get inside the spikes, but he doesn't have the time to clean it.

The people around started running early on into the fight but they would soon be back with troublesome questions. Kyouya slips into a run and gets one and a half blocks before he finds the symbol for a hunter portal in spray paint on a brick wall. He ducks into the alleyway and searches until he finds a specific indent.

He presses the jagged cuts in order of where he wants to go and the ground opens up beneath him. The trips is instantaneous but leaves him feeling greasy. He sighs and steps out of the photo booth he appeared into. He glances around but nothing has changed from the last time he was here.

The mall was fully stocked when it disappeared from sight a long time ago. According to a few Hibari adults, apparently something went wrong with the warding and ended up shutting off the entire shopping centre.

It was by complete accident that Kyouya pressed the wrong sequence and showed up in the photo booth the first time as a small child. He never visited again but it was always a contingency plan if he needed to hide.

The abandoned mall holds no witnesses to his bloody appearance as Kyouya wanders around the large shopping centre, gathering clothes to change into, almost identical to what he wears now, and other first aid supplies as well as soap and a towel. He debates because it's light outside but the power isn't on so he takes a camping lantern as well.

He keeps walking until he finds a gym. The glass door opens easily so he slips inside and heads for the changing room. He places the supplies down on a bench and tries the shower tap but it doesn't work. He ends up lifting a pant leg to grab the small, finger length knife from the ankle holster there and has to carve a symbol for water onto the showerhead with the sliver of unicorn horn.

Water gushes out and he moves back to the bench. He tucks the knife away and takes off the holster for that and his tonfa, resting them on the bench alongside a wallet with only cash and his ripped armband. His clothes are taken off next and left in a small pile on the tiled floor, completely unusable.

He steps under the shower spray, a cool flood of holy water from the angelic symbol washing over him. The demonic symbol for water gives blood so Kyouya will make do with blessed water instead.

He grabs the soap and starts cleaning the gore off him, ignoring the pain it brings when it hits open wounds. He lets himself stand under the showerhead for a while after he's done, just to relax.

He ends up stepping out eventually and using the knife to cut a line through the symbol to stop the water flow. Kyouya dries himself and slips on underwear, before sitting on the bench with the first aid materials and taking care of his wounds.

He's worked his way up to his chest when the camping light flickers.

Kyouya pauses then, holding yet another roll of bandages, and places the material down as he turns to face the doorway leading out of the shower room and into the male toilets.

He stands when mist starts visibly rolling in, flooding the floor and making him shiver when it hits his shins because of the biting cold. The light cuts off completely then, and since the room has no windows for privacy, it's pitch black with only a faint light coming from the doorway.

"Oya," a deep, amused voice begins, coming from every direction at once. "It seems like a little human got thrown in as a sacrifice this time."

Two figures step through the threshold, the light behind them casting their features into darkness. They're adult sized males, Kyouya can tell that much, one a blonde and the other wearing a woollen hat with glasses.

"Can I eat him, Mukuro?" the blonde asks with a grin, sharp teeth filling his mouth and a wolf's tail lashing from side to side behind him.

Kyouya scans the room, because the werewolf wasn't taking to the one wearing a hat.

The tension abruptly breaks when the glasses wearer sighs in exasperation and elbows the other. "I'm really sorry about him," the man says to Kyouya. "Ken didn't mean it in a weird way, he's actually a werewolf and they tend to literally ingest people..."

The other meaning for 'eat' clicks and Kyouya waves off the apology. "No, its fine," Kyouya says. "I wasn't even thinking like that. It's okay."

Ken chokes when he finally realises what his words could be mistaken as, and flails. "Chikusa, of course I didn't mean it like that!"

Chikusa ignores him and continues speaking with Kyouya. "We heard the water shut off and waited until we thought you had clothes on."

"Oh," Kyouya says slowly, rather shocked at their consideration for what appears to be two murderers. "Thank you for that, it's just that I had..." he trails off and gestures to his body that is halfway through being patched up.

"That looks really painful," Ken says, able to see through the dark thanks to his animal side. "Do you need help with your back or can you reach?"

Kyouya blinks.

"Both of you are ridiculous," comes an exasperated drawl off to the side of the room.

The light flares on and Kyouya sees another man in long boots, a leather coat and a loose tie standing in a relaxed pose with his arms crossed. His hair is a dark shade of violet and the length of his hair passes his hips. A trident stands tall by itself in arms reach of the newcomer.

"He's going to die anyway for trespassing," the man continues with a sigh.

"Sorry, Mukuro," Chikusa says, not at all sorry. "I just didn't fell comfortable leaving that sentence unexplained because... well, he's half-naked."

Kyouya raises an eyebrow at both the words and the flash of long incisors on Chikusa. It's rather odd for different creatures to mix, because they all tended to keep strict records of any slight against them and could hold grudges until they formed callouses, so for a vampire and werewolf to hunt together is rather strange.

"I understand that," Mukuro says calmly. "I just mean that is it necessary? The discussion is prolonging his death and giving him more time to panic."

"He doesn't look like he's panicking," Ken cuts in.

The other two turn to see Kyouya already having slipped into black pants and currently pulling tonfa from the holsters. The weapons need a yank to come out because of the now dried blood, a shiny grey of the fallen angels. He decides to not put on a shirt because he still hasn't dealt with some of the injuries. He turns to face them.

"Is that fallen blood?" Mukuro murmurs, eyes stuck on the weapons.

Kyouya nods easily enough. An angel's blood is gold and a demon's is black, so a fallen angel has light grey blood, still half shimmering from their angelic lives. It's rather distinct, and even higher priced than unicorn silver because there are so little fallen in any dimension, and it's significantly harder to get their blood.

With a unicorn you just let a virgin wander a forest and the animal will inevitably try to kill them and bathe in their blood to stay immortal.

"But that's not a titanium weapon," Mukuro contests. "We are not anything close to weak, so to take a fallen down must have cost dozens of lives. How are you still here?"

'We' meaning the man is a fallen.

"They were difficult," Kyouya allows. "The sword wielder is especially skilled."

"Sword wielder," Chikusa mutters, and seems to be searching his memory. "Do you mean Squalo Superbi of the Varia?"

"I don't know the man's name," Kyouya admits. "There was also a blonde with a crown, one with a tri-coloured Mohawk and one that carries umbrellas."

"You're lying," Mukuro blurts out, actually taking a step forward. "You can't have met the Varia in a situation where blood was spilt and then simply walked away."

Kyouya rolls his eyes. "Look, are we fighting? Because I need to finish here and go back to Italy."

"Back?" Ken laughs humorlessly. "What do you mean back? You're stuck here now, the whole place is a prison just for us."

Kyouya raises an eyebrow. "So you  _are_  that same Mukuro. I had wondered why you looked like Daemon."

Mukuro tenses and the trident dissolved, reforming in his hand.

"Don't mention him!" Ken snaps. "That fucker shoved us in here when Mukuro turned fallen."

"I know," Kyouya hums. "Alaude found out and he was curious enough to try and get information from mother." Information that was promptly spread around the Hibari clan. Kyouya only managed to catch bits of it and it was a long time ago so he barely remembers anything.

"Alaude?" Mukuro questions. "Is he a spy? How did he get close enough to for that man to reveal it?"

"He's a Vongola," Kyouya says. "If you don't know him you must have arrived here before he joined."

"A Vongola?" Mukuro laughs, incredulous. "Well, alright then. A new Vongola, a kid who has fallen blood, why not?" He throws his hands up and turns to leave, clearly long since given up on the world.

They all stay silent as he storms out.

"It's a touchy subject," Chikusa says. "Daemon is a bit of a douchebag."

Kyouya nods, because Alaude could be too.

"Sometimes we get people thrown in, as other prisoners," Ken says. "But they always try to kill us so we tend to strike first. None of them have any information on the supernatural, or if they do it's outdated even for us."

"I can show you out?" Kyouya offers. The three seem harmless.

Chikusa sighs. "There really isn't a way out. Mukuro could beat Daemon in a fair fight even before he turned fallen, but this place has him at barely a quarter full so he can't break the wards or the boundary circle keeping us here."

"It's full lockdown, no Otherside transportation." Ken shrugs and then nods to the bench with first aid equipment. "So, you need help?"

Kyouya places his tonfa down and starts directing the two.

It goes a lot faster with an extra two pairs of hands and soon he has his shirt and jacket on with the ankle holster, armband and wallet hidden while the vampire and werewolf keep up a steady stream of idle conversation between themselves. Kyouya has gotten so used to caring for his weapons that the washing and maintenance is quick as well and soon he has the holster on with clean tonfa tucked inside.

The three of them step out of the gym and he sends them to fetch Mukuro and bring the man back to the photo booth. They come back with the fallen who looks like he's humouring Kyouya because he honestly has nothing better to do.

Kyouya shoves them all inside.

It's a tight fit and Mukuro 'accidentally' elbows the other two far too many times, but they all shut up immediately when Kyouya crouches down at the entrance and starts tapping out a sequence on the underside of the plastic stool.

"No fucking way," Ken blurts out a split second before the floor gives under the three prisoners.

Kyouya watches with mild interest as the gate absorbs them. Hunter portals aren't Otherside magic and therefore can't be cut off unless the barrier specifically targets it – they're more like incredibly advanced technology.

He waits a few seconds after so the ley line settles again before stepping in himself and tapping out a different code.


	4. Chapter 4

A hand is on Tsuna's shoulder, shaking the man awake. If it isn't removed in three seconds Tsuna will rain angelic justice down upon whoever is waking him.

"Tsuna, get up," Giotto calls, leaning over to prod at his younger brother. "There's an urgent mission."

Tsuna lets out a sound akin to a beached whale giving birth.

Giotto sighs heavily and straightens up before taking a seat on the large and fluffy bed. "Tsuna, you are a grown angel and you should respect me as head of Vongola."

"I'll respect you at a more respectable time," comes the drawl.

Giotto rolls his eyes. "You are to take Takeshi and Ryohei and find the person who made four fallen run."

Tsuna jerks up into a sitting position, suddenly completely awake and serious. "Fallen?" he asks, his wings ruffling agitatedly behind him. "How do you know they were fallen?"

Giotto sighs. "We think they might have been Varia."

"Wait," Tsuna begins, holding up a palm as a stop sign. "The Varia attacked other fallen? Why would they do that when there's barely any of their kind left and they could recruit the new ones instead?"

Giotto opened his mouth to speak but Tsuna cut over him.

"And there were four of them," Tsuna continues. "The Varia wouldn't let them just leave. Not to mention where did the fallen come from? We didn't lose any angels, did we?"

"Tsuna," Giotto says slowly. "The Varia were the four attacked."

Tsuna blinks and his hand drops to the quilt with a little 'puff' of noise. "What… the Arcobaleno fought them? Was it ours that did it? I don't remember any mission for that."

"It wasn't the Arcobaleno," Giotto says. "They're practically drooling for whoever did it, and you know facing the Varia would be a suicide mission, it would never be assigned to an angel unit. Besides, it was only one person and not a team."

"So who was it?" Tsuna demands impatiently. "An Alpha of course but was it, what, Byakuran? You need to give me details, brother, what will I be up against?"

Giotto lets out a huff of breath and shrugs. "We don't know."

"Don't… know… what took down  _four fallen Varia_?" Tsuna repeats slowly. "There's really not a long list here, Giotto."

"Well if it was someone known they're not talking," Giotto says simply. "We only know what happened because that Varia, Fran, was happy to tell everyone how badly Belphegor got hurt."

Tsuna and Giotto both know that Fran wasn't the only reason. The supernatural grapevine is greater than even hate between races and word moves incredibly quickly, especially since instantaneous transport is easily accessible.

Plus the spies everyone has out, of course. It's not war time but the Otherside is known for paranoia and love of violence no matter which race is used as an example. It's only a waiting game until someone oversteps or takes offence, and it'll kick start another large scale fight.

The blonde leans in and drops his voice to a whisper. "The wounds were still there when they got back to the Underworld."

"It crossed dimensions?" Tsuna whispers back, completely caught up in the atmosphere. "But that's impossible."

Giotto leans back again and shakes his head. "Whatever it is, it's dangerous, but it would be even more so if whoever that is falls into the wrong hands. The balance was kept because Fon went down and Alaude came up. If the Arcobaleno get another strong member, the demons will overpower us."

"That's fine, though, right?" Tsuna hedges, his eyebrows drawn together in worry. "They don't want war, they never have."

"The Arcobaleno don't, but they won't exactly stop the other demons from trying," Giotto says. "And the angels up here get twitchy feathers when another race is stronger."

The creatures on Earth have less numbers than both angels and demons and so the two main races have mostly focused on each other in the past. Somewhat recently, by angel standards, both the Arcobaleno and the Vongola took over in Hell and Heaven respectively, which meant a shaky peace settled down. Neither group has warmongers in their midst no matter how much they like to fight once in a while so it's been stable.

It has been like this for centuries, but angels and demons live much longer and most still remember a time before when it was still outright war. The instincts and grudges stay no matter how hard Giotto and Tsuna work to erase them.

"Okay," Tsuna says. "I'll find them and bring them here."

Giotto smiles but it's a tired one. "I'm sorry about this, but people are already getting fussy and I need to stay and deal with it. I would give you one of my Guardians but we need everyone here to either deal with the angels or keep Daemon in line."

"Daemon?" Tsuna sounds out cautiously. "What happened?"

Giotto looks conflicted but eventually speaks up. "I guess you need to know... and the other Alphas will have knowledge of this already. Do you remember Mukuro?"

"Yeah, of course," Tsuna shrugs easily. "He's only been gone for like half a century. Does he like it on Earth? I've always wondered why he hasn't visited. I mean he doesn't like Daemon, obviously, but I thought we got along well."

Giotto hums. "Well, he's a fallen actually."

Tsuna blinks.

"And Daemon sealed him away."

Tsuna tilts his head to the side. Then he launches himself forward, gets a good grip on Giotto's collar, and shakes the man hard. "What do you mean fallen?" Tsuna cries. "Don't you need to eat a family member's flesh for that?"

"Yep," Giotto states, reaching up and laying his hands on Tsuna's to detach the younger so the brunet will stop shaking him. "Mukuro took Daemon's eye, and you know how the stories go, so now he has a red eye to signify the first piece he ate."

Tsuna gags and clamps a hand over his mouth, managing to stem the reflex, but his imagination is a powerful thing.

"He wanted to stay with a girl called Chrome," Giotto continues as Tsuna tries to get control over himself. "But Daemon wouldn't let him and activated the Eden gate."

Tsuna's eyes grow wide. "That's horrible," he whispers. "It would have…"

"Shackled his wings to keep him from moving worlds, yes," Giotto finishes. "But the gate doesn't work on anyone not an angel so…"

"So Mukuro fell," Tsuna murmurs. "Why didn't he talk to someone? We could have helped him and convinced Daemon to stop."

Giotto shrugs, unwilling to tell Tsuna that sometimes people don't stop after they're asked. "Maybe Mukuro just wanted to fall, I don't know, but the conversion to fallen took him by surprise and Daemon took the chance to seal him away."

"Did you talk to Daemon about the Eden gate?" Tsuna asks in anger. "Mukuro was wrong but so was Daemon."

"I did," Giotto states. "Or at least I tried but you know him, he can evade. So, yeah, they should have talked to us but… it's over now," he says vaguely.

"So why is he worried now?" Tsuna asks.

"Oh," Giotto blinks. "I completely forgot what started this conversation. Yeah, he's freaking because Mukuro is gone."

"Gone where? Do we have another fallen, as strong as Mukuro, out there?"

"Yep," Giotto says, popping the last part. "And you know how strong Daemon's wards are so we're thinking the one who took down the Varia also freed Mukuro. Good luck lil' bro. Don't die."

Tsuna stares after the Vongola leader as the blonde slips out of the room. He sighs and drops his head into his hands. "I'm so going to die."

* * *

Mukuro looks around the field they appeared in, the grass brushing his knees as it bends with the soft wind, and nothing but rolling hills for as far as the eye could see. The gate behind the three stunned men is a simple boulder, unexciting with a few scratches in it to note the gate buttons.

Mukuro lets out a slow breath and links his fingers, resting his hands on his head.

He's out. Half a God dammed century, and he's out because a little human wanted a shower.

Mukuro has used every other races' method of travel – he burned himself half to death trying to get past the barrier as a dragon, prayed to Gods he found pathetic to gain demi-god powers, and almost killed himself out of sheer shame when he tested fey travel, those ridiculous tree huggers.

He has broken every law regarding portals and has surpassed the line of what most thought impossible, and yet the one method he doesn't know -the hunter's gates that are guarded jealously with so many different codes, most leading to the bottom of the sea or five kilometres up in the air as punishment for those who mess with things they don't know- is the one method that led outside.

"Okay," Mukuro murmurs, letting his hands fall to his sides. "Okay then, what's next?" He's out now, it's fine. Time to move on.

Next step: give Chrome a proper funeral.

He's so late to meet her. He had promised the tree nymph to help her move the parent flora she spawned from. As a fey subset, Chrome can't move too far from her sakura tree and the humans were planning to cut it down and build a new set of apartments. It took almost two months to find the proper ritual and set up the tree she was going to transfer into.

Mukuro was hours away from saving her but Daemon ripped apart Mukuro's wings just to hear him beg. And then the fucker had the audacity to say he was keeping Mukuro from making a mistake. That the vampire and werewolf were bad enough company, but a nymph was pushing it.

Admittedly, even then Mukuro still loved Daemon as a brother. It's just that he loved the fucker's screams even more. So Mukuro took Daemon's eye, skipped right past falling, and  _dived_.

The change caught him off guard, understandable since the only information on the birth of a fallen is based in rumours. So of course Mukuro wasn't expecting the excruciating pain, doubled since the Eden gate knew exactly what he was trying to do and thus took to slowly incinerating Mukuro from the inside out because that thing is a sadistic torture device.

Mukuro could have handled the pain. A thousand times over in fact. If only it didn't debilitate him to the point of Daemon being able to seal him away – from Chrome, from the kind tree nymph who only wants to help people, from the woman that became Mukuro's sister.

"We're going to find her," Mukuro says. His eye -Mukuro's personal mark of the fallen- glows a bright, blood red. "And then Daemon dies."


	5. Chapter 5

Kyouya appears in a small forest clearing, the grass soft under his feet and the thin trees scattered about with overarching branches high overhead. The atmosphere is cool and slightly damp, but not promising rain since the small bits of sky he can see through the treetops are a clear blue.

There's a fox a few meters away, watching him with its head slightly tilted to the side. It's fluffy and pure white, odd since an arctic fox would usually live in the snow, and not a speck of dirty is on its fur despite apparently living in a forest. Its head would come up to Kyouya's hip, surprisingly large for a fox.

Kyouya can't help himself.

He slowly moves over, quiet even on the twigs and dry leaves that would normally crunch with the barest weight on them. It doesn't run, or look hesitant, it just sits there and lets Kyouya slide closer. Maybe he should be cautious, because despite his talent with animals they are never this calm on a first meeting.

However, it's really fluffy and Kyouya has bad impulse control.

He lowers himself to his knees and sits back on his calves about a meter away before holding out an upraised hand low to the ground so it can scent him. The fox leans forward and rumbles with a purr, sounding amused, before it opens its mouth, lips pulling back over teeth in a strangely human like smile. Its tail flicks up into the air behind it. Or, more accurately, all nine tails.

Kyouya is throwing himself back as it transforms into a man with pure white hair and lavender eyes, an odd purple marking under the man's left eye. He's dressed in all white like a uniform, and his ears are still there -perked up and angled to catch every sound Kyouya makes- as well as all nine tails that sway lazily.

Tonfas slot into Kyouya's hands and he waits but the man does nothing more than smile.

"You look very much like that Arcobaleno and that Vongola," the kitsune murmurs. "Could it be that you're a Hibari hunter?"

"No," Kyouya replies, voice even and unconcerned despite his ready stance. "I'm not a hunter."

"Not a hunter? Is that why you're so afraid?" Byakuran questions, his eyes completely focused on Kyouya in an unsettling way.

"Does this look like fear?" Kyouya asks instead, a small smile creeping over his face. "I'm sorry if I'm giving the wrong impression. I've just really wanted to meet you, Alpha."

"Oh?" Byakuran hums. "An admirer?"

"Only of stories," Kyouya readily admits. "Everyone knows about the kitsune leader." Kyouya tilts his head to the side. "If I win, can I keep your fox form for the rest of the day?"

Byakuran laughs. "If you win, little human, I'll give you a coat of my tails."

Kyouya rolls his eyes at the theatrics. Cutting a kitsune tail was said to take its power and give it to the mutilator, but it's not actually true. Even after people realised this, they still took tails of hunted kitsune and it turned into a huge insult to have a tail cut off because it means that the kitsune is weak.

Kyouya's eyes narrow when Byakuran weaves his first illusion.

* * *

The stars are visible through the breaks in tree leaves, the light pollution of civilisation not reaching this far into the forest. A cool breeze makes the trees rustle and the wind glides over exposed skin, leaving goosebumps where it touches.

Kyouya's clothes are ruined again. His injuries from before have opened and new ones have formed, making his entire body hurt. He doesn't know how long it has been since the fight ended, but from the dried in blood that covers his clothes and skin and quite a large radius around him, more than an hour.

He's hungry and thirsty, but he can't get up. Not because he physically can't, but because the fox is just so ridiculously fluffy. Kyouya is curled around it on his side, his face buried into red splattered fur. The nine tails are wrapped around him in a mimicry of a hug, acting as a soft blanket.

Due to its fast healing, it had stopped coughing out blood a long time ago and its breaths have become even. The white fur is clumped with dirt and dried blood and some parts are sheared off unevenly but it still feels so good to pet, and when Kyouya gets the right spot behind the kitsune's ears it starts purring involuntarily.

Kyouya falls asleep to the deep, slow breaths of the kitsune.

* * *

Byakuran waits until the boy is asleep and then slowly uses his tails to move him off so the kitsune can wriggle out of the teenager's hold. He transforms back, only able to stand thanks to his regeneration.

He stays there for a moment, hovering over the sleeping form, before crouching to lift the human into his arms and slipping away into the forest.

This boy is the one the demons and fallen and angels are after. This one took down four Varia, freed the estranged Vongola brother, and then fought Byakuran only to win, all in one day.

If Byakuran has to be in fox form constantly, so be it, but he is not letting such a prize go.

* * *

Morning comes and Kyouya finds himself completely healed, in a black yukata and being watched. He must have been incredibly exhausted to not only fall asleep wrapped with the kitsune but also not wake up when he was being moved or healed.

Kyouya turns to the side, the large and comfortable pillow dipping with his movement, and takes a moment to stare at the Alpha kitsune.

"Good morning, human!" Byakuran greets in a pleased voice from his place on the bed beside Kyouya. He's propped up with help from an elbow, and on his side to better watch the teenager sleep.

"It's Hibari Kyouya, and the deal is over," Kyouya says slowly. "Why did you not just leave me in the forest?"

"Because that would have been rude," Byakuran says with a pout. "Do you not want to be with me?"

Kyouya is about to answer a definite yes when the man shifts and leaves a fluffy pile of fur with wriggling tails sticking out of it. Kyouya can't stop his body from rolling over and hugging the animal to his chest, nuzzling in between the two perked up ears.

The tails hug him back and he falls into a half trance from the comfort.

Kyouya understands Byakuran better than he does most Alphas. He learned about all of them back when he was still in hunter training, but none of the others caught his interest like Byakuran did, and Kyouya soon forgot about the rest.

Byakuran is an Alpha that everyone knows as powerful. It's not that he's a warmonger or that he gets involved in Otherside affairs regularly – in fact he is rarely seen like most Alphas. The reason supernatural fear him is because when he does get involved, he leaves utter destruction in his wake.

Every time Byakuran is present, it's large scale and bloody, and even the angels have developed a healthy caution with regards to the kitsune. The feathered supernatural are bigots with egos too big to see over most of the time but they're also warriors and they can tell when someone is a serious danger to them.

Byakuran is not the fastest Alpha, nor the strongest, and quite frankly his command over the kitsune race could use some work. However, his mind is a thing to be feared.

A good example is the previous Alpha kitsune.

When Byakuran rose to power, it was a sudden change. The kitsune are not sociable creatures, and often the largest stable group amassed is only twenty, so it's understandable that their politics aren't as complex as a race like the angels and thus they wouldn't make a big deal out of the shift in leadership because it wouldn't effect most of them at all.

However, Byakuran was a complete unknown before his rise to Alpha. He was eighteen,  _in human years,_  when he beat the previous Alpha at a game of Byakuran's choice. Unlike the demons, the position of Alpha kitsune is determined through intelligence instead of pure strength, so of course the kitsune battle often has cheating – it's pretty much tradition.

Before the challenge was declared, Byakuran was often seen around the previous Alpha, not interacting with the woman in anyway, but lingering with other kitsune who were more props for Byakuran than anything.

It's called priming.

Byakuran would have simple, everyday conversations with people within the previous Alpha's hearing, and always speak of writing or reading or just paper as a whole. The Alpha at the time wasn't even focused on the young kit who would babble away off to the side, but the information was still absorbed in bite sized pieces.

After four weeks of constant preparation, Byakuran proposed a challenge for the title of Alpha. People laughed, and laughed even harder until they cried when Byakuran suggested a game of rock, paper, scissors.

The previous Alpha was far more experienced with challenges and was far quicker than her opponent, so with her keen eyes she could determine the shape his hand formed and then act fast enough to play the winning move. They played three games. Byakuran won at first with scissors, then again with scissors, and then again with scissors.

It wasn't anything synonymous with power, completely insignificant to the battles of mages who can break apart the very Earth with a few well-chosen words, but kitsune admire intelligence - not dramatic flair. The thousands of kitsune watching dropped to a knee with awe and respect for the  _child_  who took less than  _ten seconds_  to win the title.

Byakuran became Alpha at eighteen and as the previous leader stared at her hands in shock, not quite understanding why she could only play paper, he slit her throat.

To be honest, she never stood a chance.

The Alpha kitsune title went to Byakuran and he went down in history as a creature to be avoided at all costs because his attention only brought misery.

Kyouya really does admire Byakuran, he wasn't lying when he told the Alpha kitsune just that before they fought. In fact Kyouya is a little bit giddy, because he can't wait until the Alpha actually fights Kyouya properly instead of just a physical battle. He wants to see how badly Byakuran can twist Kyouya's mind, because he's going to enjoy every second of the challenge.

The door to the bedroom is slammed open then and a panicked fire elemental rushes in, red hair literally on fire yet without smoke.

"Byakuran, the Alpha spirit is here!" Zakuro cries. Then he pauses when he actually registers the scene before shaking the stunned look off. "By Alpha spirit, I mean all of the top tier Vindice have congregated in the living room."

The fox rolls its eyes and nudges Kyouya with a nose. The teenager untangles himself from the tails unwillingly and sits up, sliding off the bed. He moves to the table nearby holding his wallet with the armband tucked inside and the three separate holsters, two for tonfa and one for the rune dagger.

Kyouya takes the simple black tote bag on one edge of the table and places all of his things inside. His clothes aren't here, most likely irreparable from the fight. He slings the bag over a shoulder and moves to leave. The fox lets out a yip and when Kyouya turns to look, its standing at the edge of the bed and looking at him with expectant eyes.

Kyouya is rather confused at the behaviour but steps back near the bed and lifts the fox into his arms. The fluffy appendages immediately wrap around him like a fur cloak, and Kyouya starts walking. Byakuran uses one tail to point the way and they both arrive at the guest room easily enough.

When Kyouya enters, he finds tall adults with top hats. All but one line the walls, bandages covering every centimetre of skin, and long coats with fur lined edges. Kyouya sees the distinct shimmer of kitsune fur mixed in with werewolf hide and a mash of other supernatural skins.

"A Hibari?" the one standing in the middle of the room murmurs, stepping closer. "I was not aware the kitsune clan dealt with hunters."

"I am not a hunter," Kyouya disagrees when Byakuran does nothing but tuck his nose into the teenager's neck.

"You certainly get involved like one," the Alpha spirit drawls. "First the fallen then messing with the angels' prisoner and now rolling about with the fox."

"Do you have something to say to me, or are you going to continue pointing out the obvious?" Kyouya hums, petting Byakuran like a clichéd villain. "I have better things to be doing."

There's silence at his reply and then the spirit steps even closer until his coat brushes against Kyouya's arms, half bowed over the teen's smaller height.

"Do you know who I am, child?" the Alpha hisses. "I am Bermuda Von Veckenschtein, and you dare to talk back to me?"

"And  _I_  am-" Kyouya's mocking speech is cut off by the fox in his arms.

Byakuran shifts as he drops out of Kyouya's hands and transforms back to human, the change making Bermuda step back to give more room. Byakuran straightens, standing in between the boy and Bermuda protectively, one tail wrapping around Kyouya's mouth to keep the younger from speaking.

"Now, now, Bermuda," Byakuran tsks, his voice a mocking drawl. "Do you really want to be known as the fearsome Alpha spirit, fond of threatening little human boys?"

Kyouya grips the tail and shifts it away from his mouth but stays quiet, instead stroking the fur.

Bermuda steps back from the widely grinning fox. "Tell me, Byakuran, why do you have the child? Is it a grab for power like the pesky feathers or the horrid underworld beasts?"

Byakuran shrugs carelessly. "Who knows why I do anything, really? You, on the other hand, rarely ever leave your prison. To what do I owe this incredible honour?" The fox's smile widens further, the human teeth an insult, showing that Bermuda wasn't enough of a threat for him to shift. "Perhaps you are the one chasing the boy?"

Bermuda's bandages shift as he scowls but he drops the oblivious act. "What do you want for him, kitsune?"

Byakuran laughs, but his tails flick to encircle Kyouya. "He is not for sale, Bermuda. Get your own."

"I'd much rather take this one," Bermuda snarls and chains whip out from under his coat as the other spirits step forwards with intent.

Byakuran shifts teeth and claws to razor sharp points, his eyes flaring gold as his fur snaps to hard metal.

"Is it my birthday?" Kyouya wonders idly, calmly reaching inside the bag for his tonfa. "So many good fights…"


	6. Chapter 6

A speck of demonic energy seeps through the barrier between worlds and expands until it's a metre across, the vicious spiral of black shadow carrying dust from the atmosphere of Hell that might be glinting gold or silver or a deep, blood red depending on how you tilt your head. The demon portal grows bigger still and soon a portion of the shadow breaks off and gushes to the floor of the forest, becoming blackish brown tar that steams and shudders.

It rises then, like gravity was pulling it upwards, and takes the vague shape of a human adult. An eye snaps open from within the sludge, near the thing's left shoulder, the eyeball whirling around madly before it closes up. Another eye –or perhaps the same one- opens within the creature's forehead and snaps closed once more.

The demon is struggling with keeping shape, unused to the solid form it needs to be in to handle the human world, completely unlike the ever shifting bodies of shadow in Hell.

This time two eyes open in their natural places within the tar being, but three dozen more also flare wide along the body. The eyes close and the tar melts back to the floor, squelching as the demon scraps the body it was forming in frustration. It rises once more, with the proper eyes, and tar explodes from the newly made being, splattering across the forest floor and against the trees. Where it hits, the sludge hisses and spits, burning into everything it touches like the strongest acid.

The creature steps forward. Behind it, yet another portion of shadow falls from the portal and the next demon solidifies as well, struggling to hold onto its shape instead of features as it crosses worlds and builds itself a new body.

The first demon clenches his hands into fists, the many spelled rings clinking together. The male body is clothed in a dark red button up shirt with the sleeves rolled and black jeans tucked into boots. Metal chains hanging from clothes clink together and the runes burned in flare briefly before settling when the demon turns to its companion, silver hair swaying in the breeze.

The tar seeps off the second demon and the portal squeezes itself into non-existence. This one is also an adult male, with half-lidded eyes and braided black hair. The long coat it has on is patchwork with a fur hood, the material sown from werewolf hide. Black fingerless gloves, the network of belts, and the boots all carry the aura of supernatural creatures as well but the plain white shirt and black pants are of demonic origin.

"We're too late, Lambo," the first demon says in annoyance. "Either someone beat us here and the kitsune bastard refused to talk, or whatever we're chasing got hungry."

"Hungry?" Lambo huffs out a humourless laugh. "Hayato, that's the understatement of the century."

The Alpha kitsune's house is obliterated.

"It couldn't be just one creature. What did this?" Lambo asks as he steps forward cautiously, the man's voice barely louder than a murmur. "An Alpha elemental? A shifter army?"

Hayato shakes his head and slowly moves forward, wary but not sensing anything moving. "It's the thing we're trying to find," he mutters. "It has to be. Byakuran could only be taken down by an unknown, he's too prepared otherwise."

The traditionally Japanese built houses of kitsune look delicate but anything less than an Alpha couldn't even pierce through a rice paper wall. Now, nothing bigger than a meter across is left. There are no signs of wide range attacks like fire, and maybe it could be wind attacks but those cut straight through.

It's rubble and it honestly looks like something crushed each and every part of the mansion.

Hayato can sense pinpoints of life but no one is walking around. He manoeuvres around the broken houses as much as possible but it's hard to find ground without bits and pieces so he inevitably stumbles and staggers on the uneven terrain. They were sent here to find out if the kitsune Alpha knew about whatever thing took down the Varia commanders, but it seems Hayato and Lambo found the creature anyway.

Hayato was chosen for the mission due to his ancestry, half demon and half human. A cambion has the exclusive ability to not be affected by the usual weaknesses of demon kind. Hayato could chug holy water until he drowned but it would simply be water to him. Byakuran might stumble when dealing with a cambion and that's what the Arcobaleno were counting on if the kitsune refused to reveal his information and became violent – well, more blatantly violent.

Lambo is a cerberus, a blood hound who can take the scent of someone who had passed by an area three weeks ago and then track that person half way across the world and even between dimensions. His objective is to find the creature if Byakuran didn't have any idea what it was, or to scent it out if the kitsune already got his paws on it.

Lambo takes in a deep breath and his head snaps to the side. "Hayato," Lambo hisses quietly, standing frozen.

The half demon looks over and stills. Those are Vendice coats that Lambo is pointing at. Hayato makes his way over silently and blinks at what he sees.

The Alpha spirit and his strongest guards are scattered across the ground, most missing coats and top hats, while bandages are torn. There's no blood, because spirits don't bleed, but their bodies are faded instead of solid which means they've been badly injured.

Hayato now links the 'life' he senses to the Vendice, or more specifically the power they hold that mimics a state of living. The man can't sense anyone else, so the Alpha kitsune and his Guardians are gone. Maybe it's not the creature they're after that caused the destruction, but the two Alphas clashing? It's a feeble hope because Hayato can't figure out a possible reason for the two to fight.

"What else do you smell?" Hayato whispers, moving away from the spirits.

Lambo frowns but goes with Hayato until they're standing a safe distance away. That's a lie, there is no safe distance when spirits are involved.

"Spirits, the kitsune and his pack and a few lingering visitors, all kitsune," Lambo lists as he breathes deeply. "There's something… but I'm not too sure I've labelled it correctly."

Hayato waits patiently even as he scans their surroundings constantly for threats.

"Human," Lambo finally says after a moment.

Hayato throws a glance at him. "What's on the human, is it claimed?"

Lambo scents the air again. "Nothing smells strong enough for a claim. A touch of hunter but separate, like the human has been in contact with one. It's strong –no, not strong but… cemented- so the human has been around hunters enough to take on the smell. There's also - wow, it gets around," Lambo mutters.

The cerberus frowns. "Oh, this is going to be bad when we report. Alright, the human has fallen on it as well as kitsune obviously plus fainter vampire and werewolf."

"Fallen," Hayato sounds out, his mind pointing out the Varia as a possible link. "Are you sure it's human?"

Lambo gives Hayato a look, because of course he's certain, he's a cerberus. "Come on," Lambo mutters, tugging nervously at one braid. "There's nothing left here, and I don't want to be around when the spirits wake up after that beat down."

Hayato nods, because he whole heartedly agrees, and he holds out a hand, the shadow vortex of a demon portal opening in front of him. Lambo steps through and disappears before Hayato teleports as well.

* * *

A bright, blinding light flares into existence, hovering a metre off the ground and quickly growing large enough for an adult to step through. When angels move from Heaven, they solidify from pure light, shedding what they term 'wings' which are akin to a notable sign of power depending on the vibrancy of colour and the amount of wing sets.

The first angel to pass through the portal is pure light for a split second before the particles condense and it forms a human female. Angels don't have curse words so the female steals a few demonic ones and bursts into light once more. When the body is made again it's now male with fluffy brown hair and a neat white suit with a pastel orange shirt and pocket handkerchief.

The next one to come out is a tall male with a cheerful smile, missing an arm but he gets everything else right, the clothing similar to the first but with a pale shade of blue instead. The first plucks sunlight from the surroundings, making the area dim despite the bright sun overhead, and makes an arm for the second.

"Thanks, Tsuna," the second chuckles. "I can never get the limbs right on the first try."

The third comes through then, with a bright yellow colour scheme. It takes one step and pitches over, falling flat on its face. The portal closes then, cutting off any more light and making the Earth look like night time in comparison.

"I think I'm missing something!" the white haired male says loudly, peering up at the other two.

"Your feet," Tsuna deadpans. "It's your feet, Ryohei." He crouches and with one hand on the angel's leg he forms feet for the other man. "I think we need to come to Earth more and get in some practice," Tsuna mutters. "We've gotten rusty at this."

Tsuna turns to face the kitsune mansion and finds destruction waiting for him. Takeshi lets out a low whistle when he sees what used to be the Alpha kitsune's house. Ryohei blinks.

"Is this the thing that took down the Varia?" Takeshi idly comments and then gives a light chuckle. "Well, we're on the right track."

"That's a Vendice coat!" Ryohei points out, far too enthusiastic for Tsuna's liking. "Part of one at least, and that white material is probably bandages! Did it fight Byakuran and the Vendice?!"

"Or maybe the two could have fought each other instead?" Tsuna tries hopefully, because that would make far more sense than a complete unknown stepping in and being more than a match for two Alphas at once. He expands his senses but can't find anything in a kilometre radius.

"So… what do we do?" Takeshi asks.

Tsuna replies by opening a portal and stepping back into the safety of Heaven.

* * *

Byakuran blinks awake in the forest, the same one surrounding his house so he hasn't been moved too far, but the forest isn't exactly small either. He's just glad he isn't in the Vendice prison because the last thing he remembers is being hit from behind while breaking the chains around Bluebell. Byakuran grimaces at the injuries but sits up and gazes around him. His Guardians are scattered about, heavily injured from the Vendice but breathing evenly.

Zakuro is on fire and the elemental seems to be soaking up the flames, looking only ruffled instead of like he challenged the Vendice. Bluebell is soaked from head to toe and the mermaid is only sleeping and not forcefully unconscious.

Daisy is half buried in a sunlit patch of ground and the nymph looks peaceful, Torikabuto is tucked away beneath some tree roots and covered with a blanket so he could soak up the shadows, while Kikyo who is the only other kitsune is surrounded in dim Will-o'-the-Wisps.

Byakuran has them too, more than triple in fact, but his are all completely used up because his kitsune powers are greater and therefore cost more energy. The balls of light are just batteries for those who know how to use them.

He stands rather shakily and looks around but he can't see Kyouya anywhere. So the boy attracts Vendice, defeats them and then carries Byakuran and his Guardians away from the damage zone so if the spirits wake up earlier they won't hurt the Alpha kitsune. The human even healed them as best he could.

Byakuran huffs in annoyance, but his tails only swing lazily behind him without agitation and he soon smirks in amusement. Apparently, he's going to have to hunt the boy down.

He's looking forward to it.


	7. Chapter 7

"He's waking up," a male's voice calls out.

Kyouya opens his eyes slowly and finds himself on a metal table, the injuries from the earlier fight almost gone, only leaving light bruising and small cuts.

"Hey there, human," a man with blonde hair in a strange swirl says to Kyouya, leaning over the teenager with a lollypop in his mouth. "You had a rough time it seems."

A red head hesitantly moves closer. "We found you outside. You wouldn't happen to be the thing that's causing such a fuss, would you? What happened to you?"

Kyouya sits up and blinks at the green overalls he's been changed into. He's getting rather annoyed at people thinking they can dress him, especially into already oil stained clothes. The lights overhead are almost painfully bright and make it easy to see where stains shaped like fingers have touched the clothes. Hopefully before it was put on Kyouya.

He looks around but can't see his tote bag, not that it would have his tonfas since he broke both on the Vindice attacking him. He quickly loses focus though and searches the cavernous room he's inside, metal beams stretching overhead with wires and hooks dropped down to hold large, half completed machinery suspended in the air. Stretching up along the walls to the ceiling are vents and pipes, and the imagery of vines comes to Kyouya despite the metallic sheen.

This place really is a jungle, the large fans built into the ceiling acting as treetops while the floor is scattered with wires and pipes and bits of metal welded together with a few half formed robots towards the back, mimicking leaf litter and roots of the forest floor. Vague pathways around the room are clean of debris, most of the walkways leading to raised platforms or tables like the one Kyouya is on.

He's rather curious as to what these two people link with in a forest environment. Perhaps the animals slinking along the branches above or maybe the hidden scavengers underfoot. He turns back to the two men but he can't place their species immediately.

"What are you?" Kyouya murmurs cautiously.

The red head looks to the blonde but that man is entirely focused on Kyouya, slowly moving closer to the teenager.

"I'm Shoichi," the red head says, avoiding the real question. "That's Spanner."

Kyouya narrows his eyes and slides off the table. "I did not ask  _who_  you are, I asked  _what_."

"Do you really want to know?" Spanner questions calmly. "They say ignorance is bliss."

"I don't know who 'they' are so I'm hardly going to take the advice," Kyouya responds in a drawl. "It's a simple question, herbivores, there's no need to drag it out."

Shoichi huffs out a humourless laugh and shrugs. "We're mannequins."

Kyouya immediately coils in preparation for a fight, eyes locked onto the two even as he backs away towards the closest exit.

When Kyouya was young he saw first-hand the aftermath of what a mannequin could do – not even an Alpha or a Guardian, just a newly born creature who slaughtered an entire town, slowly and clinically pulling them apart and then piecing them back together like twisted and distorted versions, as if you were looking through mirrors in a circus. There were too many fingers or not enough skin or the correct amount of limbs but the wrong type.

It was not a town of humans. It was a town of supernatural, over a dozen races living together, all of them killed so easily.

Mannequins used to be called golems, creatures built for the sole purpose of having just enough cognitive function to better assist their makers. Golems are difficult to make and even harder to kill, so most supernatural simply traded them instead of going to the trouble of having a private one. There were no risks involved of the golems revealing secrets because they just didn't have the brain power to remember the tasks they were given.

Unfortunately, all of that magic and energy over all of those years twists the golem, seeping inside and changing it in ways that it really shouldn't be able to. The first golem to become a mannequin never took on a name, but most know him as Frankenstein's monster. After twenty years in Frankenstein's service, subjected to the experiments and sick energies, he suddenly broke free and orchestrated the death of every single family member of his creator before finally killing Frankenstein.

After that more golems changed, became intelligent and cunning, and since they've been exposed to people who need a golem in the first place, standard morals never quite settle in to the mentality they develop.

Mannequins are soulless creatures, empty husks of corpses pieced together, born for the sole purpose of eventually dying under their master's command.  _They_  are the so called monsters supernatural children hide from, the unknown creatures under the bed. They've laughed in the face of mortality and crawled out of the afterlife simply because the dead don't scream like the living, not loud enough, not  _desperate_  enough for their tastes.

However, the worst truth by far, is that mannequins have strings.

"Hey, calm down," Spanner coaxes. "You'll be dead before it starts hurting."

Kyouya tries to take another step back but his body won't move. The lights glint off thread like a spider's web, hundreds of them linking the two men's fingers to Kyouya's flesh.

"Sorry about this," Shoichi murmurs. "But we're just so very curious as to how you're built."

The mannequin raises a hand and the strings move with it, pulling Kyouya. He tries to struggle but his muscles are slack from the standard paralysis of the thread and he unwillingly takes slow steps forward. It's even getting harder to breath, the strings need to force his lungs to work for Kyouya to get air, and his eyes hurt from not blinking.

The only reason his heart is still beating is because the strings are tugging on it.

"It'll only take a second," Spanner promises. "We're almost done anyway, and we won't even add anything, although you would look nice with a few extra parts."

"Maybe some new bones though," Shoichi hums. "I want to see what a titanium skeleton does to the supernatural he comes into contact with."

Kyouya walks smoothly to the table and lies down again, staring up at the large, lazily rotating fan above as the two men pull on the strings. He can feel the thread under his skin, dragging against his flesh as the mannequins release their control and wind back the strings, all but the one leading to his heart. It makes Kyouya want to shudder in disgust but even if the tethers are gone the paralysis is still very much working.

It's an ironic ability, everyone agrees, that the mannequins who shouldn't have control over themselves now have the power to order around others. It's almost amusing, if it weren't so terrifying.

"Okay, so general anaesthesia or no?" Spanner asks.

"The problem with that is which subtype do we use," Shoichi protests. "All we could do before he woke up was a simple scan to eliminate out the major races. He's not a werewolf so no wolfsbane additive, and he's not fey so no salt, but there are still thousands of species and subtypes to get through."

"I'm not waiting for that long," Spanner dismisses. "So we just start cutting then?"

"He'd move around too much," Shoichi sighs. "Can't knock him out with head trauma either since a heavy injury could make the results biased. Do we still have those cuffs?"

The two mutter to themselves and Kyouya tries to move, to somehow shake off the paralysis. His mind is still painfully clear and if it was a battle of willpower like simple pain or a physical test like something binding him, he would have broken their necks already but this isn't something that can be overcome with brute force.

His lungs are working now, waking up slowly from the poison, but not nearly well as it should. Kyouya is suffocating here on the cold metal table as two mannequins discuss how to best reach his organs while he's still alive.

The thread from Shoichi's finger to Kyouya's heart is still there, not enough to keep up the paralysis, and the mannequin absent mindedly keeps it at a sluggish rhythm so it's just sufficient to keep Kyouya alive. The beats are clearly incapable of keeping up with the amount of adrenalin inside Kyouya. He's going to die very soon, because his very much human body is just going to give up, if he doesn't fix this.

Thankfully, since that first view of what a mannequin could achieve, Kyouya has been planning for this.

There's a demon method of transferring injuries to someone else. It's a skill made to torture, which is what most demon skills are. A human soul close to becoming demonic will be beaten half to death and then shoved at a loved friend or family member. That close to being a lesser demon, they of course move the injuries to their pervious loved one.

The command for transfer isn't the important part so while there is a chant it doesn't need to be said out loud. The necessary portion is the rune sequence on both participants (willing or otherwise) that would be used as a conduit to transfer the injuries. Fortunately for Kyouya, there is a string connected to his heart, and he knows just enough demonic words to tweak the chant a bit so it caters for thread and not runes.

Shoichi abruptly drops and hits the ground hard, limbs splayed and expression slack.

Spanner's head snaps to Kyouya who calmly sits up from the table.

* * *

"We're really sorry," the two chime in synchronicity.

Sitting on their calves in front of Kyouya, the two mannequins keep their heads bowed. The human frowns down at them, his hands planted on hips like a disappointed parent.

The two are worse for wear, Shoichi missing his arms and part of his face as well as a leg from the knee down, while Spanner has large holes cut into him like a six year old went to town on some dough with a cookie cutter. They're not in pain, of course, their nerves weren't wired for pain when they were first made.

Their stitches, having been hidden under their clothes before Kyouya started in on them, are now showing against sickly pale skin through tears in the material. The black thread looks like worms weaving under the skin and Kyouya can't look at it for long.

It holds their flesh together in patches and where parts are missing the stitches are frayed, hanging loose but slowly moving to tighten and clamp the makeshift bodies together. The discarded bits of flesh are scattered about the large room, a fan on the ceiling jammed with Shoichi's arm.

"Make me tonfas," Kyouya demands, since the Vindice broke his. "And new clothes with the strongest material you have," he adds on with a glare at the overalls he's still in.

"We don't do clothes," Shoichi begins.

Kyouya takes a step forward and the two back pedal quickly, falling over and wriggling away on the ground with unstable limbs, assuring Kyouya that they could do whatever he wants.

"Yeah, clothes," Spanner laughs nervously, trying to crawl into a hollowed out robot's torso. "I've always wanted to be a seamstress."

"Y-You know we didn't m-mean it, right?" Shoichi stutters as his stomach starts aching, the mannequin pressing up against a few pipes. "We would have put you back together. No hard feelings, okay? We're all Otherside here."

Kyouya just hums. "I'm human."

"You mean you used to be human," Spanner can't help but correct, his voice echoing strangely from inside the robot.

"No, I've always been human," Kyouya says. "I left hunter training before they started using supernatural energies to convert the body."

He was kicked out from hunter training and locked up, but that's just splitting hairs.

"Hunter?" Shoichi squeaks with wide eyes. "Wait, a Hibari or just freelance?"

Kyouya raises and eyebrow and gestures to his face. "Silver eyes, herbivore, obviously I'm a Hibari."

Spanner pokes his head out from the metal shell and blinks. "Oh," he says, dragging out the sound to a seven syllable monstrosity. "Yeah, we don't get out much, just… buy our supplies online."

"Not living supplies," Shoichi says quickly. "We don't do that, we work with metals, it's just your portal ended up outside and we thought it was an act of God."

"Demigod," Spanner corrects. "His name is Fuuta and he visits sometimes, please don't kill him."

As if summoned from the mention of his name like the Gods of old, the door a little further down opens and a man steps through, feet barely touching the ground as he glides forward.

Fuuta de la Stella has neat brown hair, blacked out sunglasses and a white vest over a dark green button up shirt combined with black pants and tie, clutching a book bigger than Kyouya's entire torso. The demigod walks up and places his book on the table nearby before turning his head to the hiding Shoichi and Spanner, the tilt of his head curious.

"Did your experiment blow up again?" Fuuta sighs fondly, space dust escaping from his lips. "I know you two just reattach your parts but I worry."

The demigod turns to face Kyouya and pulls off his sunglasses, locking onto the human. Fuuta's eyes are galaxies, thousands of stars being born and living and dying all at once, and when he stares at you it's dangerous to look back. The specks of light that denote the millions of suns fade and the black emptiness swallows you up.

He's a black hole, an abyss, space itself.

Fuuta blinks and Kyouya can finally look away, the trance broken.

The demigod smiles. "Is this the doll you want me to rank?" he asks the two mannequins as he steps closer to Kyouya.

Shoichi and Spanner frantically shake their heads in the background. Kyouya's glare at them gets steadily more murderous.

"My, it's got the glare of a medusa," Fuuta jokes and runs his hand through Kyouya's hair, petting the teenager. "I'm glad your strings are keeping it docile. This would be a lot harder otherwise."

If Shoichi had arms right now he would face palm.

Fuuta eyes flare brighter, a muted sun, and the gravity lessens in increments. "Come in, Ranking Star," he calls out.

Right before Kyouya's feet leave the ground with the absence of gravity, he pushes off and tackles Fuuta into the ceiling.

* * *

"I'm sorry," Fuuta mumbles through a broken jaw.

Kyouya huffs.


	8. Chapter 8

Mukuro claws open a gate, the fallen portal looking like a glowing crack in mid-air which soon expands in violent, jerking twists. The edges seep black and through the opening, an entirely different place is seen, partially blurred like heat waves off a road.

Mukuro gestures the other two through to the city-scape and they oblige, melting into vague outlines as they pass through the gate. He leaves Chikusa and Ken to gather information on the state of the supernatural, generally the major changes with an emphasis on the Vongola and Hunter clans.

While Mukuro would love to simply kill the entirety of the angelic race, walking in blind would be a stupid idea. Fun, but stupid.

He lets the gate snap closed and pulls apart the atmosphere once more, this time the other side showing a quiet street with apartments sprinkled about in between small shops. He remembers the place clearly from how many times he had visited before.

He shifts his weight in the tall grass, hesitating. He can see the cake cafe that Chrome would always insist on eating at. He takes a calm breath and steps through.

The sound of wind and faint murmurs of animal life cut off when he passes into the fallen portal. The world distorts uncomfortably and he has to close his eyes for a moment until he steps out, the gate blinking out of existence behind him.

The street is small, just a one way road with no pedestrians. Apartments rise like walls at either side and Mukuro turns to take in everything. It's nostalgic but new, everything subtly shifted from what Mukuro expects. Enough is the same to put him at ease but he can't relax fully.

It makes sense considering how long he was gone for, in fact he's rather surprised it's this similar, but he still finds it disappointing. He strides down the street, heading for where Chrome's tree had been. He's prepared for what he sees, really, but when he gets to the turn he freezes.

The apartment block is large and tall, with shiny steel balconies and large windows. The bottom floor boasts a magnificent restaurant and Mukuro reminds himself to start the fire there. Not in the kitchen, because people might assume it was an accident.

He climbs the front steps and enters the glass double doors. The flooring is marble and the main part of the restaurant is blocked off by a wall -with a confusing modern art mural- where the patrons are supposed to wait to be seated.

It looks ugly compared to Chrome's tree.

Everything looks ugly compared to Chrome's tree.

He passes two staff members who are blankly smiling at nothing in particular and moves around the corner, coming to a halt when he sees the middle of the dining area, only a small number of people scattered about. The marble flooring in one portion is built up to make four short walls holding in dark brown earth, and bright overhead lights shine down on the spot.

The Dogwood tree is in full bloom, the almost black bark contrasting sharply with the thousands of pure white flowers. It's beautiful, made all the more so because that is a nymph's tree.

"Would you like some help, sir?" a kind female voice offers from behind, a teasing quality to that lovely voice.

Mukuro whips around, staring wide eyed at a woman, the nymph smiling fondly up at him. "Chrome," is all Mukuro can say, but she knows.

Chrome throws her arms around Mukuro and the fallen melts into her, clutching the deep green fabric of the staff uniform she wears.

"I'm sorry," she murmurs. "I never stopped trying to get to you. You must have been so sad trapped away."

"It's fine," Mukuro chuckles, amused at how she was the one trying to save  _Mukuro_  when all along he had been hoping to rescue  _her._  He sighs in contentment, squeezing her tighter. "I'm fine. It wasn't so bad, we'd play in the games arcade and make forts with the furniture."

* * *

Ken and Chikusa sprint along the rooftops to where Mukuro would inevitably be. The informant on the other side of the city was willing (after a few broken bones) to explain the changes to the supernatural hierarchy. Big surprise; there are barely any. Supernatural tend to move slowly with how long their lifespans are.

They're both in full shift so Ken was three times the size of a human and looking like a monstrous wolf, while Chikusa has a mouthful of fangs and glowing red eyes.

Both moved too fast for people to see, hurrying because they wanted to join in and destroy the apartments with Mukuro. They locked onto the building and leapt off a nearby roof, their forms returning to human as they land hard and make cracks in the road.

They share a glance of confusion, because no one is screaming inside the building. Surely, there would be screaming?

They cautiously enter, but even with a closer view the humans are just casually going about their business, no sign of an angry Mukuro. They both pass the front wall and come to a stop when they catch sight of the restaurant.

Despite the brightly shining runes carved into the marble floor and the small scale tornado around the tree, no one is making any fuss, clearly unable to see the ritual.

"No, turn clockwise," Mukuro says, standing at the north point of the rune hexagon and holding a thick pile of papers, more scattered around his feet, most of which is whisked away by the tornado and thrown about the room. He flicks through the heavy stack and finds another piece of paper. "Wait, no, it is anti-clockwise. I was right the first time."

Chrome sighs and gracefully twirls, hovering at the east point of the hexagon. She soon catches sight of them and smiles happily. "Chikusa, Ken! It's so good to see you again!"

"Um, hi," Ken says slowly. "Good to see you… alive, apparently."

Chikusa rolls his eyes and elbows the werewolf for that amazing show of tact. "Are you two transferring the fey link from the tree?"

Mukuro bites his lip and flips through the papers again, speed reading.

"We're trying to," Chrome says. The woman holds up a beautiful gold locket on a delicate chain. The cover is embossed with the tree of life symbol that humans seem so shallowly interested about, each 'branch' actually a series of runes in different languages. Most are there for protection and to make the item porous to fey energy.

Both men splutter in embarrassment when she opens the jewellery to show a picture of all four of them. The vampire and werewolf look away shyly and pluck at their sleeves, mumbling vague things about the locket looking nice.

"Okay," Mukuro says with confidence. "Now move to Algiz and crush a flower from your tree inside the locket." He looks up and finds Chrome staring at him blankly. "The demented trident rune," Mukuro deadpans.

Chrome floats over to the rune in question and before she does as instructed, Mukuro once again interrupts.

"Wait, I don't think that should be done with Algiz," Mukuro mumbles and starts flipping pages once more.

"This is going to take a while," Chikusa mutters to Ken. "Do you want to get some ice-cream?"

"Fuck it," Mukuro snaps, frustrated. The pages burst into flames in his hands and quickly fade into not even ash. He strides forward and snatches the locket from Chrome, pouring his intent and energy into forcing the unnatural shift.

His body gives off waves of smoke, the dark grey falling to the floor and spreading, cracking the flooring of the restaurant where it touches and shrivelling the wooden tables and chairs when the furniture is engulfed.

It shouldn't work.

From the start, before Mukuro was even trapped, the concept of transferring a nymph's link to the fey world from their home tree to something else is simply not done. It's wrong to move such an important part of the nymph - it would be tampering with their very core being.

Fey need to be supplied with energy from their dimension to survive. Tree nymphs do this through their home tree which is technically considered a stationary portal to the fey world, constantly open and feeding energy directly into the nymph.

If anything went wrong in the extremely delicate process of moving, the nymph would lose their powers at best and die in agony at the worst. Even despite the risks for the fey supernatural, the power necessary and the information that is needed is immense.

This isn't the first time in history that a link would be forcefully ripped from the home tree, it's just that all other times are due to power hungry supernatural who wanted the energy to power whatever doomsday device they had. That makes it harder because the fey are expecting an attack now.

For this to work, Mukuro would have to cut the home tree link, which is arguably the easiest thing.

He would also have to act as a temporary home tree, attaching a thread of his power to the fey world in order to pull energy out and give it to Chrome. To get the energy he'll have to bypass the barriers and then fend off attacks by the fey, which is no small task in any manner, especially considering only fey can pass through the shield.

Mukuro has to destroy the millennia old defences that have been added to by every generation of fey and forcefully tear energy away from the dimension, keeping it concentrated and protected enough that it doesn't fade in Earth's atmosphere, right up until he can give it to Chrome.

While this is happening he would need to make the new home tree/locket into a permanent portal, which means deliberately attracting attention to his first power thread so they don't notice him slipping through security a second time and implanting the gateway.

Realistically, it can't be done.

However, Mukuro was never one to bow to limits.

Every item of glass inside a fifty meter radius abruptly shatters as a shockwave explodes outwards, setting off car alarms and causing a fierce rush of freezing cold wind.

* * *

Xanxus' eyes snap open, the fallen Alpha waking in his chair when his senses pick up something interesting.

He stands gracefully and makes his way out of the room, flaring his own power enough to call for his Varia. They fall into step with him and when they reach the front entrance, they throw off their solidity, launching into the sky as violent spirals of shadow.

* * *

Mukuro gasps for air, only standing because Ken and Chikusa are holding him upright. The locket in his hand pulses with warmth like a beating heart, the energy coating it feeling like Chrome.

The illusion over the humans has most definitely snapped and they're screaming loudly and running, flailing about the place.

"Let's- let's take a break," Mukuro pants raggedly.

Ken ducks and picks up Mukuro bridal style. Chrome takes the locket from the fallen's slack hand and puts it around her neck, before grabbing a handkerchief in her pocket and dabbing gently at the heavy flow of blood from Mukuro's nose. Chikusa cuts his thumb on an extended fang and the blood disperses into mist, feeding a suggestion into the air to not look, to forget, as they make their way outside.

Mukuro rests his head on Ken's shoulder, a half-numb hand keeping the cloth over his nose, and watches Chrome closely despite his bone deep exhaustion. The barriers around the fey dimension are what really took his effort. Their automatic defences are fast and painful and Mukuro will never, ever do that again.

Chrome looks fine, no discomfort at all as they get further away from her previous home tree. The average distance a tree nymph can go is only a few hundred meters, so evidently it worked.

Mukuro lets out a tired chuckle, rather proud of himself. He knew he could do it of course, he wouldn't dare risk Chrome otherwise, but it's still a rush of glee at how insanely strong he is.

_Do you see how pathetic you are compared to me, brother? Do you really want to fight me, you fuckface?_

As the only portal maker of the four is currently unable to stand, much less open a gate, the four of them find a quiet backstreet and Ken gently sets Mukuro down on a plastic crate. The plan is to rest and then find somewhere more secure.

Unfortunately, a fallen portal opens rather abruptly.


	9. Chapter 9

Things get done quickly after the short 'conversation' Kyouya has with the three.

Kyouya gets his new clothes, the material feeling no different than usual. However, Spanner takes great enthusiasm in demonstrating how durable a small square of the material is from bullets and flame and knives and it goes on for quite a while.

He ends up letting Fuuta rank him because the demigod looks like a small animal and gets really excited when he ranks things. Kyouya doesn't look at the results because he likes surprises more but the two mannequins take a look and give him wide eyed stares for a while afterwards.

Kyouya really likes the tonfas Shoichi gives him, because it has chains now and he's never used chains before. Extending his reach from close range to mid-range can only cause more destruction and make him a better fighter so he forgives them for the string incident.

It also makes up Kyouya's mind and after he's tucked away the rest of his belongings, he passes over the red armband, cut because of the blond fallen's odd knives.

"Can you fix this as well?" Kyouya asks.

Spanner holds out a hand and when he grips the material he raises an eyebrow. As soon as he touched it he felt the loss of control over his threads, the constant hum under his skin cutting off almost violently and even his stitches start unwinding in his palm, the magic keeping him together losing focus and dissipating. It'll be irreversible if Spanner holds it for long enough but for now he'll be fine.

Spanner examines the armband, ignoring his body falling apart. The red fabric is simply cotton while the gold thread of a bird in flight is radiating power; a strong binding sequence of rune drawn into every strand, unseen even to a normal supernatural but Spanner's adjusted eye magnifies it.

He blinks and looks back up at Kyouya. "This is a very strong seal. What is it for?"

"To bind me," Kyouya says.

"I thought you were human?" Shoichi interrupts.

"I am."

"Then what do you have that's so powerful something like this is needed?" Spanner asks, eyes focused on the binding again.

Kyouya shrugs.

Spanner shrugs back. "This is beyond my expertise, you'll have to go to a mage for this."

"A really strong one as well," Shoichi adds in, peering over Spanner's shoulder at the armband. "You're better off going to the Alpha mage," Shoichi jokes.

"Where is the Alpha?" Kyouya demands.

Spanner nods to a mannequin portal, a huge daunting machine near the door with lots of dials and tubes winding around it. "The portal is already set," Spanner says light heartedly, continuing the joke.

Neither of them expect Kyouya to snatch back the armband and stride straight for the machine, although they really should have.

"Wait, you can't just-!" Shoichi flails but Kyouya is already gone, the machine spitting out smoke.

* * *

Kyouya appears in front of a shop that already smells of strange incense even with the door closed. He looks around but enters the shop anyway. It's cluttered and the walkways are squished between towering shelves of dusty leather books and oddly shaped glass jars full of even more odd substances.

Kyouya steps past the unmanned counter and slips through the red velvet curtain, finding himself in a massive room, far bigger than what the outside of the store reveals, and far bigger than what's logically possible. There's a man sitting at the sole table in the very middle, the wood a dark black with light grey detailing.

"Welcome, Kyouya," the Alpha mage greets politely. "Would you like a seat?"

Another chair appears opposite the mage and a tray dissolves into being with tea and biscuits on it. Kyouya doesn't bother asking how the man knows his name or when Kyouya would arrive. He approaches and takes a seat, reaching out to place the armband on the table in between the two.

"What, no hello?" the Alpha chuckles.

"Hello, Alpha mage," Kyouya parrots politely. It is odd that Kawahira is being so friendly but that might just be his personality. Not all Alphas have to be arrogant and derisive.

"I haven't seen you in years," the mage hums, picking up the armband.

Kyouya blinks. "We haven't met before."

Kawahira pauses and looks up at Kyouya. "Oh, well you  _were_ taller the last time I saw you. I must have been slipping into different time streams. It's a bad habit of mine." He smiles. "Would you like to know a possible future, Kyouya?"

Kyouya shrugs, uncaring either way.

Kawahira's smile widens to a grin. "You're going to be having  _a lot_  of fun."

Kyouya leans forward in his seat. "What kind of fun?" he demands, his lips quirking up.

"That would be telling," Kawahira chuckles slyly.

Kyouya huffs and steals a biscuit, slumping back in the seat and biting into the treat. Kawahira stands and moves to the back of the large room, furniture coming into being as he walks past, the items blurring and solidifying so that when the mage stops, the entire room has filled with his workshop.

Tables line the walls with at least a dozen computer screens and quite a few cubby holes with neatly labelled boxes. It's spacious and modern and nothing at all like the shop out the front. Kawahira immediately starts up the computer closest to him and searches through his books on file.

Kyouya eats the biscuits and drinks the tea (which stays at a perfect warmth) while watching the occasional splashes of colour and lights from Kawahira. Eventually he gets tired and starts nodding off, waking with every shift from the mage or hiss of magic.

A bed appears to the side, a four poster mammoth with heavy black curtains. Kyouya slides a glance to Kawahira but the man doesn't turn around. Kyouya stands and moves over to pull the curtain open. It looks normal so he slips inside and pulls the curtain shut.

The sound suddenly cuts off and Kyouya whips open the curtain again in panic because he  _knows_  he can't defend from an  _Alpha mage_. If the man wants to keep him here, then there is  _nothing Kyouya can do -_

The sound returns when the curtain parts and Kawahira looks over his shoulder, apologetic.

"To help you sleep," the Alpha says. "I'm not caging you." The man has such empathy in his eyes when he looks at Kyouya.

"How well do you know me?" Kyouya murmurs.

Kawahira smirks. "Spoilers."

Kyouya rolls his eyes, shuts the curtain, and falls asleep.

* * *

He wakes when the curtain is wrenched open and Kawahira stands over him with a manic smile on his face.

"It's almost done!" Kawahira laughs. "Whoever made it is a genius, the runes are –"

Kyouya stops listening at that point, yawning widely behind a raised hand as he sits up. "What did you want, Alpha? You said almost finished."

Kawahira trails off and blinks. "Oh, right. I need dragon blood, and I'm all out." He shrugs. "The next delivery is in three weeks so you could stay, but you're on a time limit, so up you get." Kawahira smiles and strides away back to the bench.

The curtain falls shut, cancelling out the sound once more, and Kyouya flops back down. Why is he on a time limit? Whatever.

Dragons are creatures fifty storeys high with scales that can defend from even mage magic, talons that cut through diamond and flames hotter than the Earth's magma. They hoard like in the fairy tales but instead of gold it's whatever catches their fancy. One notable dragon has even made it a habit to kidnap princesses, which didn't last for long since princesses don't live as long as dragons do.

A dragon's hoard is an all-consuming need for the creature, which means they also need a safe place to store it and such burrows are near impossible to find in this modern world. Dragons also have incredibly valuable parts that are used in a wide variety of spells and items. They stay away from others, natural considering their high price on the market, and fight like category ten hurricanes with a side of tsunami and forest fire.

Due to that and the ridiculously long lifespan for an Earth bound creature, they don't tend to have kids often, which means the amount of dragons left number in the dozens.

All of these factors combine to assure that there is no way to find such a creature, apart from the very Alpha of the race who can't escape the public eye no matter how hard they try due to the many invasive spies of the other races.

Kyouya shrugs to himself. Alpha it is then.

* * *

Kyouya appears in a dead volcano thanks to the mage's spell and stumbles a bit from the sudden transport. That did not feel like a hunter gate at all. It was a smoother transition, without the sudden jerk that accompanies a technology based teleport, but it was… dusty.

Kyouya sneezes.

The sound echoes loudly around the cavernous room, bouncing off rough and jagged walls with jewels and preciously metals embedded within. Kyouya turns and blinks, his back facing the wall now. Where he stands is simply rock but only a few meters away is a steep hill.

The entire room is flooded with gold coins and diamonds with platinum trimmings. The hills of riches have low dips and valleys like the desert and its mounds of sand. It looks like something incredibly large has dug pathways into the shiny metals.

The ceiling is arched with stalactites and opens at the very top to let in sunlight that reflects off the riches and keeps the air from becoming stale. The sound of what appears to be a slow drip of water echoes somewhere to the left, and Kyouya can faintly see something like a pool of water with even more gold inside.

He starts walking forward and only pauses when he reaches the start of the gold. He has no idea how stable the coins are, but he might as well since he's here already.

Kyouya takes a few cautious steps and the gold shifts around his feet, clinking together noisily and making him sink in a few centimetres like real sand. He frowns but keep going, staggering occasionally when the difficult terrain doesn't move the way Kyouya predicts.

He gets to the top of the hill and scans the cave, not seeing any dragon within the gold. He squints a little, trying to see if the dragon was in view but simply camouflaged. Nope, nothing.

Kyouya takes a hesitant step down the others side of the mound and his foot sinks in until everything below his knee has been swallowed. A startled noise leaves him and he tumbles forward, falling down the hill. He curls into a ball and rolls with the momentum in effort to try and regain control.

He hits the bottom of the drop, his shoulders taking most of the impact, and uncurls with a flop. He blinks at the high ceiling in a daze, wondering a bit childishly if he could do that again except with a sled, and then sits up slowly, his head still spinning a little. An eye blinks at him from within a mound of gold that he just fell down.

Well, Kyouya found the dragon.

It rises up, the gold exploding outwards and rushing down its huge, serpentine body like a waterfall. Kyouya scrambles to his feet but it's too late and the gush of coins hits him, burying him under until he doesn't know which way is up.

He wheezes, the gold too heavy for him to move much and the riches packed densely enough that he'll run out of air if he stays under. He wriggles and squirms in a hopefully upwards direction and takes a large breath when his head pops out of the million dollar sea.

The dragon is splayed out over the coins with its eyes shut again, not even ten meters from Kyouya. Its long body is mostly neck and tail while its wings are stretched out for what seems to be kilometres of scales. It's a beautiful blond colour with the scales becoming a lighter tan at its belly while the end of its tail and wings is a deep gold.

The spikes running along its spine are a shiny black and look wickedly sharp, as does the half curled horns at either side of its head. The talons are hidden under the riches but Kyouya logically presumes them to be incredibly dangerous looking as well.

Kyouya hauls himself out of the gold completely and walks over to the dragon, rather amused at the glinting of gold stuck in its scales.

When Kyouya stops beside its jaw, it opens one eye, the slitted pupil locking onto Kyouya's form. Its next breath is a hiss of steam that billows out, carrying the threat of scorching flame as it covers the dragon's head and thus Kyouya.

The human hears gold clinking together in a sudden rush as the dragon moves, the terrain underneath Kyouya becoming unstable again and he staggers backwards. Something catches his eyes and he looks upwards just in time to see a taloned paw above him. It slams down onto Kyouya, covering the teenager completely.

The dragon stills and closes it eye again.

There's a pause and just when the dragon thinks it actually killed the tiny human by accident, a muffled complaint comes from its paw. The dragon lets out another breath, this time clearly amused.

It would be fine with a human taking its gold since the riches aren't even its hoard, just the result of boredom, but the human seems to be insistent on bothering the dragon. It'll just throw the human out of the dead volcano later, when it's less lazy.

Both eyes snap open when something  _pierces through its scales_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you guess who the dragon is?


	10. Chapter 10

Ken and Chikusa fall into full shift mode, stepping in front of Mukuro protectively. Chrome takes up a stance, her hand slipping into the pocket of her uniform to pull out a plastic box. It's portioned into smaller containers with different seed types inside. She can't do much as a tree nymph, isolated to growing plants, but she can cause a distraction if need be.

The Varia calmly step through the portal and blur with their speed. Ken and Chikusa see it coming but their bodies just can't move fast enough to defend and they're suddenly pinned to the ground, a wolf Ken snapping and snarling at Fran, Squalo and Belphegor.

Chikusa hisses and coils tight, struggling to injure himself so he can use a vampire's strongest power. Lussuria and Levi keep a careful hold on the creature, Lussuria taking extra precaution to push healing energy into the man so he doesn't get a single cut and that dangerous blood doesn't spill.

Mukuro staggers to his feet, shoving Chrome behind him, and glares at the Varia leader as a trident forms in his hands.

Xanxus walks right up to Mukuro and sneers down at him. "You must be the Vongola."

"I was never Vongola," Mukuro corrects fearlessly, though his hands grip his trident tightly and the very air grows heavier. "My brother was always too wary to trust me."

"He was right to be," Squalo mutters.

"And you?" Mukuro hums lightly, eyes locking onto the fallen. "Are you smart enough to fear?"

"No," Fran admits willingly.

Xanxus' arm disappears from his side and reappears pointing a gun straight at Fran's head. There's a starburst of violent orange and the fallen Guardian is thrown back, his face unrecognisable from the hole going straight through his head and the trauma to the still connected flesh. The body hits the ground and doesn't move.

Mukuro tightens his death grip on the trident and feels the energy inside him swirling madly, coiled and ready to obliterate. He may be exhausted but he has more than enough to take care of a few Varia, the pathetic fallen who don't even care to better themselves, just lazing around in Hell.

"I'm here to give you the whole 'welcome' speech," Xanxus says, holstering his gun. "As a fallen, you automatically belong to me. Therefore, if you come to Hell you'll be taught the basics and I won't get shit for one of mine being a weak little brat. It's a win-win situation."

"You just shot your Guardian, and you think I'll take that offer?" Mukuro sounds out slowly as if talking to a child.

"It's fine, he heals," Xanxus waves off the very real concern of the fallen Alpha just killing his subordinates.

"He's dead," Mukuro deadpans. "You blew his head off."

"He has Hydra blood," Xanxus argues. "The trash doesn't die unless his heart is destroyed."

Fran sits up then, his head healed and sitting right next to a new one.

"Oh my," Chrome murmurs.

"Yeah, you have no idea," Lussuria mumbles in the back and then gets elbowed by Squalo.

"My question still stands," Mukuro says. "Why do you think I'll take your offer?"

"I can protect you," Xanxus shrugs. "At least until you're able to stand on your own."

Mukuro can't help but laugh. "Protect me? You have no idea what I'm capable of."

"That goes for you too," Xanxus sates. "You're a clever one, I'll give you that," he willingly admits. "You probably have things I've never seen before, but the fact is that I have experience where you have barely any knowledge on what makes a fallen a fallen."

"I've had nothing to do but experiment for half a century-" Mukuro begins.

Xanxus barks out a laugh. "Fifty years?" he parrots in amusement. "You say that like it means anything."

The fallen Alpha advances, and while Ken and Chikusa struggle harder and Mukuro backs up completely until he was crowding Chrome against the wall, Xanxus doesn't stop until he's centimetres from Mukuro.

"I'm rather lazy," Xanxus says. "And maybe I haven't taught these fallen trash as much as I should have, but I honestly have no idea why people keep forgetting who I am."

"I know who you are," Mukuro snaps. "The Alpha fallen, we all know."

Xanxus smirks. "The first fallen," he corrects. "The Alpha part comes later."

As Mukuro watches, the man in front of him gains dark red cracks and lines in his tan skin, the scars growing wider and pulsing with heat and power as they take over Xanxus' body and unlock his real power levels.

Mukuro can barely breathe and he can see that the others are having trouble as well.

Xanxus reaches up and runs long, calloused fingers against his own cheek, tracing the raised edge of one scar. "It was my father," he says conversationally. "You have a neat eye but I was a bit messy. I just kept tearing into the fucker because it tasted so good."

Mukuro swallows thickly because he knows how delicious the flesh tastes, how ripe with power it is. The extra energy from the angelic flesh you consume is what gives a fallen their boost in power. Not all of it, but it contributes a lot depending on how strong the family member is.

"Do you know who my father was?" Xanxus asks idly. "I'm curious if the whispers have reached the younger generations or if the information was erased by the Alpha angel in my time."

Mukuro can only shake his head, the pressure too heavy to speak.

Xanxus huffs in laughter and leans closer, whispering into Mukuro's ear before he pulls back, his scars closing until unblemished skin remains, sealing away the dangerous and tempting power.

Mukuro stares in shock and a whole lot of denial.

_God, little fallen, was the righteous fucker that I ate._

"I'll give you time to think over the offer again," Xanxus allows. "Oh, and if you see the Hibari boy, tell him that he's mine, would you?" Xanxus states calmly.

"Yours, is he?" Mukuro chuckles, a bit hysterical from the information just shoved onto him. "And how is that going for you?"

Xanxus huffs out a laugh. "The hunt is the best part. Now, shouldn't you be running?"

"From you?" Mukuro wonders idly. "I don't think you're very scary, no offence."

That is a blatant fucking lie and Mukuro knows Xanxus can tell.

Xanxus simply turns and strides away, opening a portal. Before he steps through he turns back to Mukuro and smirks. "If you have second thoughts, I'll be happy to rescue you from the Vongola. In the meantime, think of this as a welcoming present."

Mukuro freezes, only just picking up on the fast moving angelic energy. The flood of Mukuro's power beforehand has also called Daemon.

That's the only thing he registers before a streak of red leaps from Xanxus' fingers and slams into Mukuro's chest. He doubles over with a cry of pain, dropping his trident as his eye burns like lava was being poured into his skull.

The Varia leave, Ken and Chikusa scrambling over to Mukuro as soon as they're released, but that's a vague thing to take note of. The pain fills him agonisingly slowly, lazily drip-drip _-dripping_ to the pit of his stomach where it sloshes and burns him from the inside. He can feel the other three trying to ask him what's wrong and if they can do anything.

Chrome drops a seed and the plant shoots up rapidly under her command, single flower bud opening to show dark blue pollen. "Mukuro, please, can you bite into this?" she tries, snatching the general poison cure and holding it out to him.

Mukuro sucks in a desperate gasp when it feels like something inside him snaps and all of that viscous, burning pain explodes inside him, turning to Mukuro's usual cold, gently swirling power. He's bloated with the energy, delirious with it.

He jerks up right and the three leap backwards in shock.

"Okay," he chirps with a wide smile, trident reforming in one hand. "Note to self, never share raw power with the Alpha fallen ever again."

"Are you okay-" Chikusa tries.

Mukuro tears open a portal as answer, shoving them all inside before letting it snap closed against three horrified faces. He then takes a gate to somewhere else, somewhere with wide hills of sand. He not quite sure where, but the life forms he senses are insects and the odd lizard.

He sends out a burst of his unique power, the energy radiating like mist as it covers the desert he stands in, calling Daemon's attention away from the others and directly towards Mukuro.

It's a short wait as a painfully bright portal opens and Daemon steps through.

"Brother!" Mukuro calls out, spreading his arms wide as if asking for a hug. "My, I haven't seen you since that time I gouged out your eye and swallowed it whole!"

Laugher bubbles out of Mukuro, and he acknowledges that maybe he isn't in the right mind to be having this conversation, but the absolutely ridiculous amount of power inside him says that Mukuro can do whatever the fuck he wants because no one can stop him.

"What's happened to you?" Daemon asks, stepping forward. "This isn't like you."

"Isn't it?" Mukuro hums. "And how exactly would you know what I'm like, dearest, loveliest brother? In fact the longest consecutive time we've spent together is when you cast me into Eden and lectured me as my wings were slowly ripped to shreds."

"If you didn't struggle so much, it wouldn't have hurt," Daemon says. "Take it from someone who knows."

"You don't know anything," Mukuro snaps, the glee at being so powerful disappearing under the hatred. "You pretend you fucking care but you never have."

"I care," Daemon says quietly. "I always have, it's just so hard to talk to you when you're on Earth with that leech and mutt-"

"Don't talk about them like that, you racist asshole!" Mukuro snarls.

Sand whips up in a large radius around Mukuro, spiralling upwards into a tornado before diving back down and charging straight for Daemon.

The angel scowls and a small portal opens at his shoulders, the golden light forming massive wings of deep indigo. The portal blinks out of existence and seconds before the drill of sand reaches, Daemon shoots directly upwards, his wings beating against the air.

Mukuro simply jumps straight up, wings of leather and scales tearing out of his back as he goes. Scales streak across his skin and his next snarl brings flame to life. For all intents and purposes, Mukuro is a dragon, which should be impossible.

There should be no way that Mukuro can access the abilities of another race. Water can't be fire.

But realistically, fallen shouldn't exist either. Their bodies are unnatural and their powers freakish. They're in a permanent transition state from angel to demon, two races that are as different as they can be.

Based on that little fact, Mukuro has experimented and has been able to 'transition' into different races as well, slipping around the line of what should be impossible, taking it as more of a suggestion than a universal law.

Water can't be fire, but it can be hot enough to _burn_.

He's always been the creative sort, one step ahead of everyone else despite the library being locked to him and even when he was denied a mentor. Mukuro doesn't need anyone, never has, so that time locked away was just an uninterrupted research break.

_Is fifty years nothing to you, Alpha fallen? Well what do you think I can do in your life span?_

"Just tell me what's wrong!" Daemon shouts over the loud, churning sands below.

"Tell you?" Mukuro screams. "The last time I told you, I was shoved into Eden! But no, that was just good brotherly behaviour, wasn't it? Nothing is ever your fault, huh?"

Fire dances over his skin and explodes in a shockwave, catching the edge of Daemon's wings. The man hisses in pain and the very sunlight is pulled to replace the burnt feathers. The fire that drips to Earth is so hot and so potent the sand turns to glass, spiked and warped from the winds that mould it.

"Mukuro, just listen!" Daemon barks in irritation.

"Do  _you_  ever listen?" Mukuro laughs, wings furling around him as the sands rise once more. "Have you ever listened to me? Or to the angels that thought me better off dead? Have you heard of how many tried to kill me even before I became a fallen?"

Daemon snarls at the sand that cuts into him and throws out his arms, the grains dropping to the ground like lead weights and impacting so hard a circular crater forms.

"No, I didn't know because  _you don't tell me shit, Mukuro_!" Daemon roars back. "Am I supposed to read it from your mind?"

"Don't fuck around!" Mukuro hisses. "I told you that they tried to cut off my wings!"

"They were playing, they were only a few centuries old," Daemon dismisses.

Mukuro lets out a wordless scream of rage. Daemon whirls out of the way as Mukuro charges and instead conjures fire. Not dragon flame like Mukuro but proper holy fire, able to not only kill a demon but make sure it stays dead instead of escaping to another dimension and healing there. He throws it like a spear and it strikes Mukuro's chest dead on, washing over the man.

Mukuro cries out in pain but it's fake and mocking and Mukuro can't hold it for more than a few seconds. It turns to derisive laughter. The attack would have done serious damage to a fallen, but right now Mukuro isn't one.

"Oh, is that all you have, brother?" Mukuro hums, barely seen past the roaring flames he's engulfed in. "I'm truly quite disappointed."

The fire presses into him and ripples outwards, growing exponentially as Mukuro uses dragon travel to teleport behind Daemon. The man expects it though and drops like a stone before arcing upwards in a curve, heading straight for the sun.

Mukuro flinches away from the light but follows nonetheless.

"Fine! Fine, let's get to the main issue here. You expected me to let you die," Daemon snaps back. "For a nymph you've known for barely half a century at that point," he scoffs. "You were going to face off against the Fey, Mukuro, and I should have just stood there and watched you die?"

" _Yes!_ " Mukuro roars. " _Yes, you fucking should have!_ "

He puts on a burst of speed and they clash in the air, shockwaves raining down on the Earth and hurricane winds blow from their wing beats. Mukuro rips into his own arm with sharp claws and the blood splatters over Daemon's wings that were being used as a shield.

The blood sinks in abruptly with Mukuro's vampire control and Daemon screams as his body is invaded, the blood infecting everything it touches, growing boiling hot and distorting his wings, making them shed feathers and flesh.

Daemon twists in pain and falls from the air, his wings shedding into flecks of light as they part from him, the angel getting rid of the limbs before the infected blood can reach his body. Mukuro dives down, latching onto the angel from behind and digging in with hooked claws. Seeds from Chrome's box burst to life, pressed in between Mukuro's hands and Daemon's chest.

Daemon groans and tries to curl away from Mukuro as the plants rapidly grow, burrowing into Daemon's body like it was soil and twisting around the man to pin his arms by his sides. The angel shudders and gasps for breath as the plants start draining him to feed Mukuro, the roots clinging to his lungs and liver and weaving into his bones and puncturing his intestines.

Daemon planned to fight a fallen, not an army of supernatural. He wasn't expecting a vampire and certainly not a fey so why would he bother to dodge some blood or to get away from some seeds?

He can't defend himself from an enemy, not when he was expecting a brother.

"Isn't this great?" Mukuro roars over the sound of air twisting past from how quickly they were spiralling towards the earth. "I love this feeling," Mukuro laughs. "I dream of this moment  _every night_  and I wake up wanting to fall  _all over again_!"

"You're a disappointment, you piece of shit fallen," Daemon spits out, wheezing for air because his body wasn't listening to him anymore. "You think you're strong for doing it? You think you're noble self-sacrifice was anything but a selfish demand for attention? You could have just fucked the nymph and gotten it out of your system, then we wouldn't have to do this."

Mukuro's wicked smile falls away and it's silent for a moment, the two brothers plunging towards the ground, the Earth far too close.

"Don't you dare insult Chrome," Mukuro says calmly and pushes away.

Daemon slams into the ground with enough force to shatter every bone in a human body and Mukuro snaps out his leathery wings at the last moment, taking to the skies again and landing lightly on a faraway dune.

Daemon isn't dead. He doesn't deserve death.

Mukuro's body reverts back to fallen as his power finally dips into dangerous levels. The shifting isn't kind nor easy and it's all Mukuro can do to open a portal. He gets three steps and collapses into Chrome's arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, who do you think is right? Mukuro, Daemon, neither, both? Or just Kyouya?


	11. Chapter 11

Kyouya returns via teleport with a full grown dragon and the Alpha mage's room abruptly expands to accommodate such a huge creature. The golden scales are slightly dented in a few places and the large shifter is completely still.

"Is this enough blood?" Kyouya asks, leaning against the massive jaw casually.

"That… that is more than I needed," Kawahira admits. "The seal would only take like three drops, perhaps."

Kyouya shrugs.

"I honestly don't know what I was expecting when I sent you out," Kawahira says in complete truth. "I mean I know that you're both friends but I never really asked how you met."

"Friends?" Kyouya echoes in confusion.

Kawahira chuckles and moves away from his benches, striding closer to the dragon. The tiles of the floor rise up and lever open the supernatural's jaw. The mage quickly ducks in and takes the three drops from the Alpha dragon's tongue because there are no scales there to make it indestructible.

Kyouya frowns after the Alpha as the man walks away again, murmuring in a different language, since the teenager still doesn't have an answer.

The scaled hide beside him shifts and the large eye, right beside Kyouya, snaps open to reveal liquid gold with a black slit for a pupil.

Tonfas slot into Kyouya's hands, ready for a fight, but the dragon… kind of flops a bit like a fish out of water. A high pitched whine escapes the Alpha, more like a child throwing a tantrum than a creature in pain.

The thrashing and rolling forces the room to expand and contract as the huge dragon moves about, whipping the long tail and flapping its golden wings which cause a gust of wind to nearly pick Kyouya up from the floor. Kawahira snaps up a translucent barrier before any of his materials get blown away.

"Why would you do that?" the Alpha dragon complains in a deep voice, hiding its muzzle under its paws and razor sharp black talons. "Every time I meet someone they're always so mean to me."

Kyouya is kind of lost.

The dragon huffs out a warm breath that carries a cloud of smoke with it, and shifts into human form. Wings slam into the tiled floor and cover the Alpha's body completely as the dragon curls inward.

The wings shudder and fold in pleats to get smaller in size before the Alpha finally reaches human height. The jewels and gold coins clatter to the ground as they get dislodged from scales, forming a small pile of riches where the Alpha stands.

Then the far smaller wings snap backwards and press into the Alpha's spine, melding with the body and left over tail to leave a whipcord thin string of gold. The almost delicate looking tail sways like a metronome along the pile of riches, making the metal clink and clatter as the tail slices straight through even the diamonds in neat cuts.

The now human frowns down at Kyouya, warm and tan skin contrasting with the spiral tattoo arcing up one arm and seeping over the shoulder. The Alpha still has scales, fading in and out of visibility along the man's legs and hips, climbing up the bare chest to wind down muscular arms. Pale blond hair is only just swept out of the man's eyes, messy and wild.

"And who are you, little human?" the Alpha dragon rumbles in annoyance, voice low and husky as slit pupils lock onto the teenager.

Kyouya flings a tonfa at the man because the Alpha is completely naked.

It's a direct head-shot and the man topples like a tree.

* * *

Only after Kawahira stops laughing, wakes up the unconscious Alpha dragon and dresses the man, does Kyouya emerge from the bed.

"Sorry," the Alpha says cheerfully, tail whipping about the air behind him. "I keep forgetting that I end up naked when I shift."

Kyouya scowls harder.

"Anyway, my name is Dino, Alpha dragon," the man introduces. "Chiavarone Dino, I suppose, since you're Japanese. It's nice to meet you."

"Hibari Kyouya," the teen murmurs back. "You may leave now, as you are no longer needed."

Dino winces exaggeratedly, hunching his shoulders so the fur on his new jacket bunches up. "You don't have to be so mean. I just want to hang out."

"Perfect timing then," Kawahira says as he turns from his benches, holding a red armband in one hand. "Kyouya here is interested in sightseeing the supernatural world, anything and everything that would be of interest. I'm sure he would be thankful for a guide."

"No," Kyouya deadpans.

Kawahira smiles and tosses the armband through the air. As soon as Kyouya snatches it up, both the human and the dragon are yanked from the room and thrown via mage travel.

* * *

Dino and Kyouya appear in a dense forest, right in front of a very angry looking unseelie fey.

"Get out," the fey snarls.

The vines and flowers threaded in her dark hair writhe in anger. Her dragonfly-like wings flutter quickly, trapping rainbows of colour, and the surrounding flora grows exponentially, leaves shivering and trees bending to loom overhead ominously.

Kyouya whips out his tonfas with an eager look but Dino's thin tail whips out and tightens around the teenager, pulling him back behind the shifter.

"Hana," Dino greets, calmly but with an undercurrent of danger. "This child belong to Kawahira. Hurting the human or I will be tantamount to declaring war, you know that."

Hana snarls but the forest stops writhing.

"Is there anything I can do to help you?" Dino asks, softly now. His tail is pulled and pushed at but he dismisses the feeling. "You're very clear headed, Hana, something must have happened."

Hana looks away but her shoulders slump. "It's Kyoko."

"The sibling to the Vongola Guardian?" Dino muses, ignoring the modified saw blade hacking away at his tail. "Are you two fighting?"

"Someone took her," Hana grits out.

Dino immediately tenses, mostly at the words but a little bit at the teeth gnawing at him. "No one is that stupid."

"That's exactly what I thought," she huffs out an unamused laugh. "I ignored the threat, because why would it be sent to me instead of the muscled headed monkeys calling themselves her brothers?"

"Do they know?" Dino asks, using his tail to move the teenager further away when he feels the brush of tonfa at the back of his jacket.

"I tried to get through to them, but you know angels," Hana spits out with scorn.

"They laughed in your face and called you unimportant," Dino sighs. He tilts his head to the side and a tonfa flies past.

He doesn't need a confirmation to know that's exactly what happened with the arrogant pigeons. They'll easily dismiss even Alphas, and focus their entire attention on killing off demons at the slightest provocation.

They might be a warrior race but so is Dino and he doesn't throw himself at any opportunity to shed blood.

"The worst part," Hana begins hesitantly. "Is that I think it was dwarves."

"Dwarves?" Dino blurts out in horror, tail tightening around Kyouya protectively even as another tonfa skims his ear. "Seriously, is there anything at all I can do?"

Dwarves are the best smiths, hands down. Unfortunately, as a race that only gives birth to males, they tend to demand females as payment – and if that doesn't work, they'll simply steal the women.

Hana grits her teeth and stares Dino down, searching for honesty in the offer. It actually seems like the Alpha dragon is completely willing to take on Hana's requests. A third tonfa whistles past but both Alphas ignore it.

Accepting the help is the only option Hana has of bringing Kyoko back with angel feathers intact. Hana had been debating, ever since learning that Kyoko was taken, if she would leave the forest. It would mean the loss of all of her powers as a fey and she would be nothing more than a human who could see past glamours.

Hana is purebred fey, not a subset like a nymph. Fey can move between the fey courts and Earth but on Earth they are restricted to places with high levels of fairy dust like mushroom rings. If Hana did break the connection between her and the forest, she would be able to go after Kyoko but she would most likely end up dead or as another prisoner.

"Whatever you want in exchange, it's yours," Hana says confidently. She rises to her full height, the living dress of vines and twigs reflecting off her wings.

"No need," Kyouya cuts in then. "I've always wanted to fight a dwarf."

Hana smirks, approving and clearly blood thirsty. Vines drop down around Kyouya's head and the teen accepts the tonfas back.

"Might want to step back a bit," Dino recommends lightly, his tail guiding Kyouya into the circle of his arms. "Dragon travel is rather… destructive."

Hana fades into non-existence but both males know the trees are her eyes.

Dino wraps his arms tighter around Kyouya and the world turns to fire. It swarms the two and grows as it feasts on Dino's will, spitting out embers as it forms a fire tornado and reaches up past the tall trees to claw at the sky.

The next second it splutters and dies, flickering out to reveal a large diameter of damage where the trees are ash and the ground is charred black.

The trees at the edges of the destruction zone shift and the burnt edges flake off to reveal new bark underneath. The dry and ashy dirt shudders before new plants sprout up, bright green and healthy.

* * *

Kyoko wakes as the Earth trembles, vaguely remembering short people. She opens her eyes and sits up to find herself somewhere underground, with one torch hanging on a jagged rock wall, and a dirt path leading out of the small cave.

There's a crumpled ball of silver metal beside the exit as well, something like criss-crossing bars. With every quake, bits of dirt and stone fall from the walls and ceiling. She sits up and blinks when a black jacket falls to her lap, having been covering her like a blanket before.

She peers down and lifts a sleeve in curiosity. There's a red, cylindrical strip of material with a bird in flight sewn on in gold string. She slips her arms through the jacket and stands, brushing off a light amount of dirt from sleeping on the ground before heading out.

She takes the twists and turns without a care, searching for someone to ask directions. She's probably late to Hana's place already, and she hopes the unseelie fey isn't worried about her.

Kyoko glides around the next corner and a smile lights her face when she finds intricately carved double doors made of thick stone. She steps up and pushes on one door, feeding some angelic grace into her muscles so the heavy door swings easily.

As soon as it starts moving the sound of thumping reaches her, in time with the shuddering of the cave system. The screaming is there too, as well as the heat of flame.

She peeks in hesitantly and finds a large dragon trotting (or perhaps prancing) around and squishing dwarves under large, taloned feet without any care or effort. A tiny blur flips around the scaled creature's head and hits the ground so hard it craters, throwing up a mass of dwarves from the shockwave.

Kyoko sighs in exasperation and backs out of the room, closing it politely behind her. It would be rude to interrupt. Some people just like fighting too much for her tastes, but she would encourage whatever makes them happy nonetheless, especially in her brothers.

She turns and hums as she wanders through the cave's halls. She'll find her way out eventually.


	12. Chapter 12

The tree Daemon is perched in is thick and tall, far bigger than anything on Earth or in the ichor and blackness of the filthy demon world. The only contenders for its size are tucked behind the wards of the fey realm.

The angelic dimension stretches out before him, the world flat with shining white streets and tall spires of buildings. A waterfall pours from one side of the tallest building and drops in an arc to a lake below. The droplets catch the light and glint brightly alongside a constant rainbow.

Further out from the center, there are ragged edges as the heavy, black clouds slowly devour the floating world. Behind, where Daemon is unwilling to look, the tree is half consumed by the opaque nothingness. Thin wisps and tendrils reach out from the clouds and brush his back, sliding through the feathers of his wings.

Still, Daemon doesn't move. It's a slow-moving sickness, far more terrifying to some, but Daemon finds himself relaxed around it. Some days he leans back against its cold.

A bright lantern sits next to him, the fierce light almost winning out over the glow of angelic atmosphere but doing nothing to illuminate the clouds. He hopes that one day it will lead her to safety, out of the nothingness and into his arms.

"I don't understand, Elena," Daemon murmurs to a lost love. He brings his wings tighter around him like a cloak. "He would die for someone who can never know him. The fey woman can't see his true form or step into his home world."

The thick clouds closest to him seem to shudder like glass trembling from echoes of a strike.

"Exactly," Daemon says in agreement. "That's dangerous, for Mukuro and our-" Daemon pauses. "And my angelic race. The fey may be tree hugging spores but they have been here almost as long as angels have. If someone gets through their barrier then it doesn't matter the excuse, they'll either kill the angels or die trying."

The faint sound of a storm reaches Daemon, a muffled viciousness that quickly dies away, leaving him in silence once more.

Daemon sighs. "I can't put him in Eden again, you saw what happened last time."

He shivers as the cloud presses against him and flicks it off with a bristle of his wings in annoyance.

"Yes, fine," he admits. "It was a smart move, but Mukuro makes such a big deal out of everything." He rolls his eyes, remembering the dramatics. "Honestly, it's like he thinks he's the only one that got attacked by moronic little twits." He huffs in annoyance. "Where there is power, there is envy."

Daemon glances over his shoulder, a hazardous habit, and for a brief moment he's lost in the nothingness, detached from everything and just… lost. He turns around again and determinedly stares at the light of the angel kingdom, painful to gaze at after the darkness.

"He has no room to argue," Daemon says, a hitch to his breath after he tempted the monster hidden in the clouds. "No room at all since he killed every angel who attacked him. Only after taking their wings of course.

The dark rumbled again, the storm almost sounding amused.

Daemon smirks, smug and proud and vicious. "Yes, he takes after his older brother." Daemon frowns a bit then. "He probably doesn't remember where he learned it from, he was only a few centuries old at that point."

The nothing behind him shifts and swirls, casting a breeze through the tree and rustling leaves as well as Daemon's feathers and hair.

"You would have loved him, Elena," Daemon murmurs. "He's so intelligent and strong, but he's also so young and impulsive and now he's fallen in with a bad crowd."

Daemon leans back against the cloud, feeling the ice grow in his body and tensing at the sting in his wings as the edges of his feathers dissolve.

"If only you weren't lost in the dark," Daemon sighs. "I'm sure he wouldn't be this way." He leans back further, pressing against the clouds. "I'll come and find you soon," he promises. "When Mukuro is safe, we can be together."

Daemon stays that way for a long moment, then he grabs the lantern and stands, making the long climb down the tree and then walking the six hours back to the castle.

Maybe one day he'll learn, but right now his wings are destroyed and the sky is out of his reach.

* * *

A shudder runs through Byakuran when something in the distance leans heavily against the Earth and the pressure forces him to shift his weight.

"Ran?" a woman croons in sugary sweet worry, looking away from the glass display areas that line the walls of the room. "What is it?"

Byakuran turns to the human woman and chuckles, his smile just as fake as her concern. "Nothing at all, just some tree huggers buzzing about."

"The fey?" she murmurs, eye narrowing. "Yes, the ones I have are acting strange. Constantly repeating a word over and over again." She suddenly gives him a coy smirk. "Then again, the ones I have are either half dead or entirely insane."

They share a brief titter, both of them with empty smiles.

"What have they been saying?" Byakuran asks casually. He brushes down his white clothes that are specifically made like a military uniform to make others nervous.

"Who, darling?" she says airily, shaping the words carefully with ruby red lips. She strides forward to one of the larger glass enclosures, her heels click loudly on the marble flooring. When she stops, the beat is kept by her tapping at the glass with a gloved finger like a child at the zoo.

"Your fey. What have they been saying?"

She waves a hand dismissively. "Just some nonsense. The word 'mikiru' or 'mukiru', constantly." She sighs dramatically and touches her temple with her fingertips. "It gave me such a headache that I killed them all."

Byakuran sighs, just as dramatic if not more so, and approaches the woman. He lays a consoling hand on her shoulder and ignores the glass wall. "Oh, you poor dear. You must be exhausted. Here, sit down on one of the couches and I'll get you something to drink."

The human nods regally and her dress flares when she spins and strides for a werewolf skin chaise lounge, dyed an eye watering neon orange. "You're too good to me, Ran. I don't know how I managed to survive without you."

"You flatter me," Byakuran simpers, flashing sharp teeth just to see her eyes narrow. He walks away, leaving the woman to admire her captured supernaturals.

He pretends he doesn't hear the rasping voice of a kitsune behind him. Begging for death.


	13. Chapter 13

The last dwarf sprints for the exit in a mad desperation to get away from the cruel duo that stormed into their kingdom and started breaking the dwarven city while taking out huge swathes of dwarves, indiscriminate in their apathy.

A tonfa catches the dwarf in the back of the head and he goes down hard.

Kyouya walks up and snatches his tonfa, giving both a flick to clean the metal. The sound of scales hissing against each other makes Kyouya turn, only to find Dino in human form. He raises his tonfa and Dino backpedals quickly.

The dragon explodes into his true form again because he still remembers the last time Kyouya got angry. "I forgot!" he cries, trying to placate the child. "I'm technically naked in this form so it honestly doesn't occur to me when I shift to a human skin."

"Is that my problem?" Kyouya huffs, still advancing on the poor Alpha dragon.

Dino scrambles backwards and huddles against the wall of the large cavern in effort to put as much distance between him and the human. He looks ridiculous, the huge golden dragon trying to blend into the dark brown walls so a tiny Kyouya won't hit him.

Dino may have the size advantage over Kyouya in this form, but it also means that there's more of him to be hit with tonfa. He quickly makes a plan to shrink again and stay in the air until the boy decides to leave him alone.

Kyouya stops when massive wings slam into the floor, forcing deep gouges into the rock, the limbs both obscuring the dragon from view and protecting him in such a vulnerable time since he's distracted with moulding himself a new body.

Well, 'vulnerable' in the sense that a rail gun is needed to pierce the dragon instead of pretty much nothing being able to.

Changing forms is not a weakness to dragons. They are shifters, born with scales but easily able to take any form at will. It's in their base nature, so it makes no sense for them to be completely defenceless when in a transition state. However, only similar creatures intended for change like kitsune are also as prepared when shifting, while most are greatly weakened.

Portals are created with this problem in mind. For angels, they move between the worlds and create bodies with what is essentially a huge gush of toxic atmosphere at their backs, bright enough to challenge the sun.

Demons use poisonous tar that corrodes anything it touches or is inhaled by. Fey change within wards and barriers, that will rip apart any foreign intrusion, before they step into a new world. It's different variations on the same technique by most of the races that are forced to transition in some way when they move worlds.

Then you have the werewolves, who were born from a mage playing with things they didn't understand and by some miracle the creation thrived. Wolves only have two forms and the transition is disgusting and painful because the human form rearranges to a wolf in the most primitive way, breaking and reforming bones, tearing muscle and rebuilding, growing hair and all the rest.

While it's not a long change it still gives an enemy plenty of time to strike and quite frankly it's an insult to call the abominations 'shifters'. Dragons hold that rightful title, mastering the ability long before hatching.

However, Dino may or may not be a little out of touch due to sleeping for a few centuries.

The Alpha folds down and instead of stopping at a human size, he condenses further into something barely higher than Kyouya's mid-calf. Small wings rise up from the new figure and Kyouya tilts his head in confusion. Round, honey eyes peer up at the human from a tiny dragon. A pudgy body wobbles on stumpy little legs and the normally daunting spikes are curved and look squished.

Dino mentally face palms because he was supposed to be this small, but look exactly like his older self instead of a hatchling. His body seems to have taken the form automatically because Dino still remembers what it felt like.

A squeaky roar escapes the baby dragon that was now all soft curves instead of sharp edges and tiny wing flap quickly in effort to take off. Kyouya drops his tonfa and tackles the dragon before the Alpha gets a meter off the ground, the human hugging the adorable creature tightly to his chest and burying his face in between the wings. Even the scales feel softer despite being just as strong as before.

The dragon lets out a warbling complaint as he gets squished like a toy but Kyouya just flops onto the ground and curls up with the cute dragon pressed against his chest. Dino stares up at Kyouya's soft expression and feels the hands gently cradle him.

Apparently, Dino has just discovered the human's weakness.

* * *

It takes more effort than Kyouya will ever admit, but eventually he stands again and collects his tonfa on the way out of the tunnel system. He still has Dino in his arms, the Alpha dragon quite content to just lie there.

The two of them run into an angel with Kyouya's jacket on the way out, a sweet brunette by the name of Kyoko who ruffles Kyouya's hair and tries to pat Dino on the head. Kyouya turns away so the angel can't reach his dragon and scowls at the woman.

"How adorable," Kyoko coos. "What are your names?"

"I'm Dino," the baby dragon says, trying to stifle the urge to expand into his true form. Cuddling from Kyouya is one thing, but a complete stranger underestimating him is another. Then again, Kyoko seems like the kind of nice person to try and pat his huge form as well.

Kyouya says absolutely nothing, not really sure how to speak with something so innocent.

"And this here is Kyouya," Dino adds on when the teenager just peers at Kyoko with wariness. "We offered to find you for Hana; she's pretty worried about you."

Kyoko frowns in concern. "Oh, I hope she's not too upset. Some nice short people wanted help with finding their dog and I couldn't just leave them."

"Did they offer you candy as well?" Dino blurts out.

Kyoko blinks. "No, I was the one who gave  _them_  the candy." She suddenly lights up with happiness and Kyouya flinches back from the rays of sunshine. "Would you two like some?" Kyoko asks and before they answer she's already reaching into a pocket of her dress and dropping a handful onto Dino's back because neither of the males have hands to spare taking them.

Dino hits Kyouya's arm lightly with his short tail and the teenager jolts, shaking off the stunning brightness and mumbling a short, "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Kyoko says sweetly. "It's the least I could do for such a kind boy. This is your jacket, right?" She plucks at the collar of the black clothing and starts to take it off.

"Keep it," Kyouya interrupts. "It's cold underground and you're only wearing a dress."

Kyoko smiles and shrugs the black jacket on again. "Such a gentleman, Kyouya. Thank you."

"No matter," Kyouya dismisses and starts walking down the tunnel, instinct leading him straight to the portion with the weakest integrity.

Dino stares up at the teenager holding him and wonders if something is seriously wrong. He hopes it's just the angel that's making him act oddly and not brain trauma or something. Dino doesn't remember seeing Kyouya hit during the fight but the teen was battling underneath the Alpha's torso most of the time and that's kind of a blind spot unless Dino is looking deliberately.

Or maybe… Dino glances over to the woman. Or maybe Kyouya has a crush! The Alpha shakes his head straight after that thought. He's jumping for a conclusion; it's probably something weird, like Kyouya can't handle an honestly nice person or Kyoko is cute but Kyouya doesn't allow himself to tackle hug people who look like humans.

Kyouya reaches the part of the tunnel where the foundations need upkeep and looks down to the dragon.

"You both need to be holding onto me," Dino dictates. He technically doesn't need them to, but it's easier to take them along and they'll be less likely to get burned alive.

Kyoko brushes the candy off Dino's back and they drop to the dip between Kyouya's chest and the dragon. She then lays a hand on the Alpha's spine and nods to say she's ready.

"Here we go," Dino says cheerfully.

A fire storm explodes from the small dragon and within milliseconds it engulfs the two others, ripping all three away from the tunnel. The flame gushes down the tunnel because there's too little room and when it hits the walls the entire structure shudders and immediately begins collapsing, the destruction creating a chain effect and bringing down adjacent tunnels that all relied on this one to stay solid.

The fire stops unnaturally and disperses despite the fuel that could keep it going, an inbuilt safety mechanism to dragon travel, but the damage is already done. The three leave the dwarven city littered with its unconscious and half dead citizens, blocked off completely to the outside by caved in tunnels.

Kyoko just admires the pretty colours and wonders briefly if the short people ever found their dog.

* * *

Hana rolls her eyes when her forest complains about a burnt patch. She skates along the tree tops and drops to the soft grass in front of the odd group.

"Hana!" Kyoko greets enthusiastically, pulling away from the males to hug her best friend.

Hana last a second with her stoic outside but wraps her arms around Kyoko and squeezes tightly. "You're late," she grumbles. "You definitely owe me chocolate cookies for this."

The forest agrees enthusiastically, leaves shaking and grass reaching up to prod at Hana's ankles. Hana kicks them away and Haru grumbles, the forest retreating into silence for now. Never for long considering how loud Haru tends to be.

"Sorry, Hana," Kyoko giggles as she pulls away. "And sorry to you too, Haru," Kyoko adds on as she peers at a nearby tree.

Haru, the suck up, drops a vine down near Kyoko's head with a large flower at the end and tucks the flora into Kyoko's hair.

"Oh, how beautiful," Kyoko compliments, reaching up to touch soft petals.

Hana focuses on the other occupants of her forest now that she's certain Kyoko is fine. "What happened to you?" she asks, staring at the definitely not intimidating dragon before grimacing. "Ugh, is that your child form? I'm getting hives just being around you."

"Hana doesn't deal with children well," Kyoko explains.

"I hate them," Hana corrects and has to look away. It only helps a little because she can still tell the child is there.

A soft 'thump' sounds and when Hana turns back, Dino is still small but looks sleeker and predatory in his adult form. Or he would appear so if he hadn't just been dropped onto his back by Kyouya.

"Oh, I see how it is," Dino complains dramatically, covered with the candy that fell when Kyouya dropped him. "One of you hates me as a child and the other hates me except when I'm a child. There's no winning is there?" He rolls onto his belly and stands, looking like a mutated snake-dog that has a taste for human flesh.

"I like you no matter what you look like," Kyoko reassures, kneeling to pat Dino on the head.

Hana pries the jacket off Kyoko then ignores them and turns to Kyouya, passing over the clothing. "As a thank you, I'll give you a favor. Anything."

Kyouya swings the jacket onto his shoulders and carelessly nods to Hana.

Hana frowns at the teenager. "I can wilt an entire nation's crops, little boy, don't take a fey's favor lightly."

"Kyouya," Dino calls, launching from the ground in a leap and spreading his wings to glide the rest of the way to Kyouya's shoulder. He wraps around the teenager like a scaly scarf and lets his wings hang down like a cape over Kyouya's back. "Time to go. I sense angels, and if I stay there's going to be a lot of blood."

They disappear to Kyouya's protests about wanting to fight and Hana's muttered curses about boxing monkeys.


	14. Chapter 14

Hana flinches as the fey dimension presses harder against the rest once more, trying to press the other worlds out of alignment. They're angry, and she can feel them calling for her power, demanding her strength, commanding her loyalty. The fey are vengeful creatures but Hana has been so disconnected for so long that she doesn't care.

Hana brushes it off and they retreat from her. She wonders if anyone else can feel this - if anyone else is listening. It's daunting, the all encompassing weight, but so few are connected enough to the ambient power to feel it.

"Hana, is everything okay?" Kyoko wonders. "If you miss them so much we can always find them again, so don't be concerned."

"It's not..." Hana begins, but decides that Kyoko shouldn't worry about such things. "Never mind, just - I think you should stay with me for a while."

Kyoko starts to reply but an angelic transport opens off to the side, pouring blinding light and toxic radiation into the surroundings.

"Brothers!" Kyoko cries happily, opening her arms and accepting two (extremely) intense hugs from the angels who practically gallop out of the glowing portal.

Hana rolls her eyes, still unable to understand how Kyoko could- no, never mind. The woman could love anyone, she's just that wholesome. Even the human looked stunned in the angel's presence.

"Kyoko! It's extremely good to see you well!" Ryohei says in his usual level of noise, which translates to something like a steam train rushing towards you at full speed after a demon picked it up and hurled it.

Kyoko doesn't even flinch.

Hana cuts in before Knuckle can speak because no, that brother is even louder and Hana does not want her ears to bleed. "Did you two get a message from me at all?"

"An ultimate message?!" Knuckle wonders. "No, we haven't gotten one yet! Was there something you needed?!"

"Nothing," the fey mutters. "Though I would like it if you could speak in something other than exclamation points."

Haru pokes Hana with a blade of grass to berate her but the forest is also laughing with rustling trees and bright flowers that turn to face the small gathering of Otherside creatures.

"I don't know what you ultimately mean!" Knuckle says with a furrow to his brow.

Ryohei flails with purpose (maybe a boxing move, but Hana doesn't care enough to ask for clarification) and turns back to Kyoko. "You need to come back to Heaven! There's an extremely dangerous person running around!"

"Person?" Kyoko wonders with an adorable tilt of her head. "What kind?"

The two brothers share a look and all Ryohei can claim is, "We're not extremely sure!"

Hana wants to say, so badly, 'is he about this high, black hair, keeps an Alpha dragon as a pet?' but that would ruin the fun of having a mystery. She's heard the rumours of course, despite her tendency for isolation.

She felt the fey barrier shake and scream with M **U** _ **k**_ _ur_ _ **O.**_  She saw snippets of the kitsune in his forest. She breathed the changed air when the fallen fled. She laughed when a vision came to her mind, telling of a human with wings of metal.

Hana is a fey. She lives for the mischief and chaos.

"What have they done?" Kyoko questions.

"They're pulling in the strongest!" Ryohei explains. "They've been extremely challenging the Alphas and winning! Maybe raising an army!"

Knuckle nods seriously. "Giotto has been getting reports to the ultimate about them bringing in the mannequins, of all creatures!"

Kyoko sucks in a frightened gasp and Hana feels a sense of smugness when the angel shrinks back to the fey for instinctual protection instead of the brothers. Then Hana realises exactly what was said.

"Mannequins?" the fey blurts out.

Hana is linked to millions of forests and fields around the globe but those horrifying creatures are entirely unnatural. They're a blind spot in her sight, invisible unless they're standing in front of her, and by then it would be far too late to run.

"That must be a false sighting," Hana continues. "There are no more mannequins. They were destroyed by - by  _Reborn_  after that supernatural town was slaughtered. There's no way any of them escaped that demon."

* * *

"I make mistakes," Reborn says casually and takes a sip of his espresso, completely unmindful of Lal's glare as he rests a hip against the kitchen bench.

The room is painted in shades of red as the constant firestorms of Hell pour light through the huge windows, the only source of brightness and heat that Hell has.

"You deliberately left some alive," Lal deadpans.

"I deliberately left some alive," Reborn admits in amusement. "To be fair, I did kill most of them a couple years ago, but a few were kind of cute in that 'soulless mass murdering machine' kind of way so I decided to leave them be."

The woman glares harder but refrains from attempting to turn Reborn to stone, her arms crossed and feet planted as the snakes in her hair hiss in anger.

It would be a cold day in Heaven when Reborn decides to be anything close to co-operative. He just smirks, his black eyes showing nothing but emptiness even as the rest of him is animated.

Lal sometimes wonders if Reborn is a mannequin. He's certainly a strange demon, a complete unknown before he simply showed up one day and settled into the Arcobaleno mansion right at the edge of Hell.

He could be the Alpha if he truly wanted to, but it's infuriating because he  _doesn't_. Reborn doesn't seem to want anything except his damn coffee and his damn lizard, prone to just disappearing when something catches his fancy.

"I could lie if you really wanted?" Reborn offers with a chuckle. "Some  _more_  ignorance might just help the situation. Here, ask me the question again and I'll tell you that everything will be perfectly fine."

Lal lets out a frustrated breath and spins on a heel, stomping out of the kitchen with intent to find Colonnello.

Hayato and Lambo reported that the one causing all the chaos could possibly be a human, and that unfortunately coincides with other spies and information already gathered. Lal was fine if it was just a creature; that they could deal with.

However, the thought of a another Fon -or even an Alaude- running around is worrisome. She needs to find out if it is a Hibari and then she'll track down Fon and get him to sway the new interest.

"He's on the roof," Reborn calls after the retreating gorgon, a mocking edge to his tone.

"I didn't ask for your help!" Lal barks, her blue hair-snakes hissing along with her words, but she does turn around and head for the roof.

* * *

"I only speak with Mammon," Xanxus says before Lal or Colonnello have the chance to speak. The Alpha fallen is relaxed in his throne, feet kicked up and a wine glass in hand.

Lal frowns in annoyance. "Shall I put on a cape? Will that make you more comfortable?"

"It'll certainly save us from looking at your ugly face," Fran says flatly.

Lal slides a glance to the hydra, the man currently in the process of absorbing his extra head so there are three eyes, a wide mouth and an obvious dent in the crown of his head. There's disturbing, and then about seven steps above that is Fran.

The demon decides to simply ignore the man and turns back to Xanxus. "You've had dealings with the creature."

Xanxus glares, silent. He's already told them his negotiation price.

Colonnello pulls the water from the air without a hint of effort, shaping it into a large sphere around the fallen as a blatant threat – to drown, to trap, to show control. The nickar demon raises an eyebrow at the Alpha fallen, demanding an explanation.

"Leave it," Lal dismisses. "If he doesn't want to talk then we shouldn't bother. Mammon gets twitchy when we touch the fallen pets."

Colonnello frowns but drops his command over the water and Xanxus's clothes gets instantly soaked. His wine glass overfills from the sudden influx of liquid poured into it, the dark red drink splashing onto the floor.

The two Arcobaleno then disappear through a portal, intent on interviewing anyone who came into contact with the creature that's causing so much dissonance within the Otherside. The demon transport leaves splotches of tar burning into the floor and a smoke that's choking with how much it smells like sulfur.

"Boss," Levi murmurs in a worried voice, leaning back from the pressure that slowly gets heavier.

It's barely a smidgen of Xanxus's true power, barely half of what he showed Mukuro, but enough to make the Varia concerned.

Xanxus cuts off his power with a sharp abruptness that leaves the room almost too empty, and tosses the glass over his shoulder where it shatters upon contact with the wall. "Get me another one."

The Varia trip over themselves to oblige.

Honestly, Xanxus's control is impeccable if he's angry, but it actually slipped from amusement. The demons, along with most of the Otherside, still think it's a creature causing havoc. They see human, they get told it's a human, but they don't quite understand that Kyouya is  _fully_  human.

Literally, Xanxus can just do a simple scrying spell and the little boy will have nowhere to hide – there is nothing that protects full humans. Has no one thought of this? Xanxus has checked his theory, he can very clearly see Kyouya.

Creature blood is the catalyst that stops scrying, since protective spells can link to Otherside people and feed off the innate power they have. Harmful, helpful or preventive spells just fall off humans, it can't stick because if a spell isn't linked to some kind of power source then it fades quickly and has to be constantly replaced.

This is simply for spells, of course, because there are many ways around the issue of humanity if you get deep enough into the subject. For example, you can attach an enchantment to an object and have the human wear it, that way the caster fuels the protection or the natural energy of the dimension does. There's also wards which can be hooked into ley lines for energy, but those are stationary.

So there are ways past the difficulty, but you can never put a permanent spell on a human directly unless you have some incredible power, centuries of time, and a whole lot of knowledge.

Oh, sure, a lot of very powerful people are protecting him, but nothing can link properly and that leaves gaps. Xanxus can throw out a continuous scrying call, wait until the protective spells slide off the human or the enchanted object is removed from Kyouya's person, and he has a location.

It only takes a minuscule amount of time for the scrying to find someone and while the protectors are good at bridging gaps, they can't predict the faltering of the preventive spells which tend to vary in length to a truly ridiculous degree.

At this point, Xanxus is just waiting for the right time to introduce himself to Kyouya.


	15. Chapter 15

Kyouya leaves Dino during the night, sneaking away from the Otherside hotel they're staying at. The dragon isn't too bad, and he's pretty cute in baby form, but Kyouya just isn't a social person. He doesn't like being around people for too long.

He walks aimlessly for a bit and randomly catches the first train at the station, then a bus and a boat before arriving at a small sea-side town.

Kyouya makes his way up to the one of the many cliffs hanging over blue, blue water and watches the sunrise. A feeling of contentment spreads out from his chest as he takes in the pinks and oranges and fluffy white clouds.

He's been running around for a few days now, and the fights were nice, but he needs to rest as well. He finds himself relaxing muscles he didn't know were tense and takes a small nap, uncaring of the light wind that plays with his hair.

Kyouya wakes when he gets hungry and wanders through the quiet town, curious as to where everyone is. It's around eight in the morning judging by the angle of the sun but nothing is open and this far down from the cliffs he first visited, it's actually rather foggy.

Sometimes he can see frightened eyes peering out of the barricaded windows, and while Kyouya rather prefers the herbivores away from him, he also wants food. Kyouya solves the problem by finding a restaurant and breaking in the door.

They shriek and flail but tonfa are a universal communicator and they quickly prepare breakfast for him. They don't speak Japanese and Kyouya doesn't know any other language but he understands the panicked gestures at the forest that surrounds the town.

After he finishes his food he makes his way towards whatever scares the herbivores so much. He walks onward to a castle hidden very well by tall trees and even heavier fog. The gardens are organised but the plants look wild and vicious, kind of like the Hibari compound.

He can't see anyone here either and walks up to the wood and metal double doors. When he opens one of the doors it doesn't squeak on rusted hinges, and the inside foyers is completely clean so clearly someone is taking care of the place.

"Hello?" Kyouya calls out, his voice echoing slightly in the huge castle. "Does anyone want to fight me?"

No one replies and he steps inside, wandering the place in curiosity. He goes up a staircase, down a hallway, left, left, right, up… and encounters a man who looks to be a copy of him.

The teenager hovers at the threshold of an empty ballroom, blinking at a man with Kyouya's hair and Kyouya's eyes and Kyouya's air of confidence, except… older. He stands all the way at the end of the room, partly covered in shadow from a thick black curtain that's half covering an arched window.

He wears black pants obviously tailored to fit and an old-fashioned shirt with ruffles down the front. The man also has a cloak with a high collar and just under that is a doubled-up chain which keeps the edges of the cloak together.

"What generation are we up to now?" the man hums with a voice that even sounds like Kyouya. "I've been out of touch with the family for a while due to… reasons."

"Are you a Hibari?" Kyouya wonders, walking closer to the man half hidden in shadow. "I didn't know there was a hunter base here."

In fact, Kyouya had entered the town specifically because there wasn't a hunter base. He knows his fun has to end sometime, but he'll stay away for as long as he possibly can.

"I'm a Hibari but I'm no hunter," the man says easily enough, stepping behind the curtain as Kyouya gets closer, leaving only a faint shadow of himself against the fabric. "What is your name, child?"

"I'm Kyouya, and you are?" He moves closer, confused as to why the man is trying to stay away. He pulls back the curtain but the man is gone.

The fabric wrenches itself out of his grasp and all of the curtains in the room hiss as they're yanked across the windows, blacking out the room almost entirely, only faint light coming through at the very top of the curtains. A sudden thickness to the air comes next and it says someone strong is flaunting their power.

"You can call me the Alpha vampire," purrs a deep voice at Kyouya's ear.

Kyouya whips around, his tonfa out, but no one is there.

"I'll leave you to settle in, little one." The man's voice echoes around the room, making it impossible to pinpoint his location. "Then we can have family time."

Kyouya frowns as the dark presence vanishes. He tries to pull back a curtain but it's frozen in place and doesn't budge an inch. He thinks he should be panicking considering his reaction at Kawahira's, but also he's pretty sure the vampire is harmless.

To be completely honest, if fighting is off the table Kyouya would probably do something like this. In Namimori, if he's really bored, he'll stalk people and watch them break down into sobs.

Kyouya leaves the ballroom and tries to open a window in the hallway, none of them having curtains, but the it doesn't move either. He huffs in annoyance and retraces his steps back to the front door, occasionally trying windows or doors that lead to balconies on his way but nothing works.

Vampire's control their blood and everything the liquid touches. It only makes sense to coat the walls of the castle in the red substance and flood the air with dispersed particles. It also explains the herbivores' fear of this place because if you use blood as a tool you tend to run out quickly and people don't like it if you eat them to replenish.

Kyouya hasn't heard of a Hibari vampire, but considering the strangling of information when Fon first went rogue, he can believe the man nonetheless. He also believes the man is the Alpha, simply because Hibari are the best at whatever they do. It wouldn't exactly be hard to be the strongest since vampires themselves are quite a small group, usually recluses.

Kyouya frowns when the front door is also a lost cause and he keeps wandering around. He winds up and down stairs, peering off the highest tower and getting lost in the underground catacombs, where a cloak falls on him when he shivers from the cold. He glares around him but does wear the warm cloak.

The castle doesn't let him leave but the fireplaces flare to life when he sits down in a room, and when he jumps off a staircase a carpet catches him. Kyouya eventually gets called out for lunch and finds himself opening a door in the catacombs and reappearing in the second-floor dining room.

Vampire portals taste like rust.

Kyouya finds the Alpha there -sans cloak- and the man invites him over, past the pretentiously huge dining table and to a small round one that fits two people perfectly. They take seats and the food is hamburger steak and maybe this is what having family feels like.

"What's your name?" Kyouya questions.

"Don't laugh, okay?" the vampire asks with a pretend seriousness as he tucks a cloth napkin over his lap. "It's Hibarin."

Kyouya has to pause for a bit.

"Yes, I know, Hibarin Hibari," the man sighs. "Just eat your food."

"Would you prefer to be called something else?" Kyouya asks politely and pops a forkful into his mouth.

"At this point I've stopped caring," Hibarin confesses and then asks his own question. "Are you closely related to Fon and Alaude?"

"Brothers," Kyouya mutters.

Hibarin hums. "I haven't gone to see them yet but I keep track through rumours. If I get discovered by the hunters in our family they'd try to kill me. Again."

"They can't," Kyouya says in confusion. "The oath-"

"After my time," Hibarin interrupts. "Long after my time. These clothes I'm wearing are not the era I was born in."

Kyouya hums and asks another question, the two of them passing the time in the same way until they finish eating. Hibarin waves off Kyouya trying to collect the dishes and instead leads the younger through the castle and up to Kyouya's new room.

Kyouya is focused on the conversation but Hibarin thinks about the items necessary for keeping the teenager. Indefinitely.

Kyouya speaks about his Namimori, and his mother not wanting him to leave. What he doesn't speak of is being trapped and the constant disappointed looks, of the snide remarks about doing something useful with his life, of being bait to help the family 'despite being so out of control'.

"Nothing has changed from my time," Hibarin says in annoyance at the thought of such a powerful person wasting away.

"I highly doubt it ever will," Kyouya mutters. "Recruits go in young and they never quite find their way out whole."

Hibarin looks at him with dark eyes. "You'll always be safe within the walls of my house."

"Castle," Kyouya corrects, yet again.

"It's the same concept," Hibarin says dismissively and opens the door to the room he had prepared.

"No, it's really not," Kyouya deadpans, wandering into the large room. "My home in Namimori is a mansion, and this is a castle. Regular houses have nothing on this."

Hibarin smiles. "Thank you."

"It isn't a compliment, it's a statement," Kyouya rejects.

Hibarin only chuckles. "No, I mean thank you for coming here. It's been very nice to talk with you."

Kyouya blinks and looks away, out of the window that has a view of the entire forest it's so high up. "I… wouldn't mind doing this again."

"You're such a sweet child," Hibarin murmurs, his eyes bleeding red as his teeth lengthen to wickedly sharp points. "So sweet."

And so lost, almost too easily stolen away. It's not only wolves that children have to look out for if they step off the path, though Kyouya is hardly trying to get to grandmother's house. Hibarin steps closer and leans down to reach Kyouya's neck, his lips parting.

"The herbivore found me," Kyouya abruptly says, moving away from the teeth and stepping closer to the window.

Hibarin straightens and his appearance is fully human when Kyouya turns to him. "A friend of yours?" he says simply, if a little coldly.

The entire castle shakes as the massive Alpha dragon drops down onto a spire and roars so loud the trees are blown back, the ground shakes, and all the wild life in the forest scatter in terror. The people in the town scream because something worse than the monster in the castle is here.

Kyouya sighs. "He's so dramatic."

Hibarin scowls in annoyance. He can't do anything now because the other Alpha would protest and the last thing the vampire wanted was a fight with the dragon during broad daylight. Maybe at night he could have won, but it's too risky now, when he's at his weakest.

The vampire steps up and grabs Kyouya's upper arm when the teenager tries to leave through the window. "You'll come back, won't you?" Hibarin murmurs.

"I will," Kyouya promises.

Dino roars again, like thunder, like a tsunami crashing down, his talons digging gouges into the roof top and sending shards of ceramic roof tiles and stone to the forest floor far below.

"Excuse me," Kyouya grumbles, taking off the cloak and handing it over. "I need to bite this herbivore to death."

"Bite to death?" Hibarin echoes in confusion but Kyouya is already gone.

The Alpha vampire stands there for a moment, watching as the child climbs onto the windowsill and waves his arms to bring the dragon down. Dino darts in, frighteningly fast for something so big, and snatches Kyouya up in his talons before flying off.

Hibarin holds up the cloak and breathes in the traces of Kyouya's scent, something living, something warm. He sighs and then dissolves into shadow.


	16. Chapter 16

Lal and Colonnello track rumours to an isolated parking lot with a lone abandoned car in one corner.

They step from a portal of tar without hesitation, solid forms coming into existence with ease. The mall is well hidden, but Fon has insider knowledge with his link to Alaude so the two demons know something is here.

"Head clockwise," Lal orders and goes the opposite direction herself.

The two pace the parking lot in smaller and smaller circles, watching each other for that slim blind spot that every illusion has.

Colonnello smirks when Lal disappears for a split second before coming into focus again. "Got it," he crows, shifting back a step until the other vanishes again. "Right here."

"Give me twenty minutes. On three," Lal warns and counts down.

At 'three' they both flood the blind spot with demonic energy. The gap is forced open as the edges fray under the combined assault, and Lal leaps into it, fearless as ever. A moment later, Colonnello pulls back on the attack and he's suddenly the only one around for kilometres.

A pang of worry shoots through him at the thought of Lal inside somewhere that he can't reach. She won't be able to get out without his help – the blind spot trick doesn't work if you're the one surrounded.

He shakes off the ridiculous concern. Lal commands the armies of Hell and Colonnello isn't leaving this spot for anything.

* * *

Lal's feet hit linoleum instead of concrete and she scans the surroundings with a practiced eye. She landed in an open area with a fountain bordered by several escalators that lead up to two more levels.

The hidden shopping mall is saturated with angelic power and almost makes her sneeze. She crinkles her nose and starts her search, immediately dismissing the trails of fallen angel, vampire and werewolf. Their energy has flooded this place with how much time they've spent wandering around so it's obviously not who she's looking for.

Ten minutes later, one of her snakes rears up, hissing at having tasted something different in the air – barely faded. Lal darts through the mall to where the taste is strongest. She ducks into a gym's shower room and comes to a halt.

There's a holy water rune on one shower head, dulled with the line crossed through it but still glowing faintly enough for her to see. Lal begins to step cautiously, assuming the small puddles of water on the ground are dangerous to her. The mall's wards are keeping everything static so the water can't evaporate.

She gets as close as she dares to the damp pile of clothes in one corner, red and grey blood mixing in the material. Her tongue flicks out and catches the taste of Fon before he visited Hell; when he was still fully human.

* * *

Colonnello throws his power into the blind spot once more after twenty minutes have passed and Lal is striding out, utterly confident at breaking through Daemon's three dozen wards, her snakes loosely curled around her shoulders in a relaxed state.

He grins.

"What's that look for?" she demands.

"Nothing," Colonnello chuckles. "You're just so beautiful."

"Idiot," she grumbles with a small smile.

* * *

The next few visits don't go as nicely.

They arrive at the rebuilt Alpha kitsune's den but the albino isn't there and the Guardians won't talk without cue from him. They have the eye witness accounts from the cambion and the cerberus anyway so they count it as a waste of time regardless.

They lose the trail for a while but turn up at the Alpha mage's shop who smiles and blows a dark power in their faces. They come to awareness floating in the cold vacuum of space and portal back down to Earth.

They search a gold-filled volcano but apart from several demonic texts, there's nothing interesting. The same goes for a mostly buried dwarven kingdom. At this point they're both rather irritated, so when a fey looks down at them and mocks their attempt at interrogation, they set the forest alight with potent blue Hell fire.

In the end, they return to Hell and discuss it with the others. They may not have exact descriptions of the creature but they now know who's allied themselves with the strange human.

* * *

When Lal finishes the report, the room is quiet. Only Mammon and Reborn are missing.

Fon hums when the information is presented. "Perhaps… Alaude…"

"Are we accusing him or getting his opinion?" Verde asks, wanting to speed this up.

Skull squints a bit at the green haired man to try and see through. He slips a bit of alp magic in and encounters dreams of money instead of science. "Mammon?"

The jinn changes shape back to their preferred form and simply continues. "And are we asking him in regard to being a hunter or as an angel?"

"Getting his opinion and as a brother," Fon clarifies. "I spoke with Reborn and we both agreed that it would be best to be on the same page with this. If it really is someone like me then it's not an Otherside issue anymore."

"Of course it's still an issue," Lal rejects. "This will effect us either way."

The real Verde walks into the room and takes a seat at the circular meeting table. "I don't know what you're all talking about, but you're probably wrong," he says immediately. "So the fire tornadoes have been moving faster lately because-"

"Don't care," Colonnello cuts in. "No one ever cares about your pointless discoveries, Verde."

Verde rolls his eyes. "The tornadoes correlate to how strong our dimensional barrier is."

"Is that good?" Skull blurts out.

"Depends."

"Depends how?" Fon asks.

"On what you consider good."

"Verde," Luce says pointedly, stopping the circular conversation.

The green haired demon shrugs. "Reborn slowed one of them down so he could sneak into Heaven, but then they started moving faster to make up for-"

"Hold on!" Lal cries. "Reborn did  _what_? And you just let him?"

Verde splutters. "What was I supposed to do? He convinced me it was a good idea."

"In what dimension is that a  _good idea_?!" Skull rants. "You need a new definition of 'good'!"

They all turn to Fon accusingly but he shakes his head. "We were supposed to talk about setting a meeting with Alaude. Nothing was concrete."

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Luce reassures. "Reborn knows what he's doing."

* * *

There are ways of getting inside the angel dimension without being an angel. The dimensions started off as a whole but were cut apart a very long time ago by power stronger than a God and more fearsome than one too.

Now, they're layered on top of one another, occupying the same space in the same reality but never touching. Everything is only thinly connected by the very wards and barriers that keep them apart, yet they're still able to effect each other.

There are thousands upon thousands of spells and enchantments and rituals that can let a caster see or hear or touch the barriers, but it all comes with a high price - the least of which is death. Most are pulled into the containment wards and held there as living batteries for the dimensions to feed off.

Even the most stable, the ones with the most to live for, eventually go insane with the connection because it's not just power being taken away. It's a complete and utter absorption into the barrier, into the universe, into the endless abyss of nothing that runs in between the dimensions.

You _feelhearseetaste_ everything all at once, torn apart and stretched and consumed until there's nothing that identifies you. So when you come out the other side you're still the old woman on her death bed, the new born taking their first breath, the werewolf screaming as their bones break from change, the mage in their workshop playing with time itself, the bee, the daffodil, the dirt...

Some things don't mix, like paint being combined to make a disgusting brownish green with streaks of pathetic navy-grey. Nothing worth saving is left. Creatures have made it out before, quite a few, yet they never make it out together - just frayed pieces of something that might have once been.

But Reborn is in a class of his own.

Reborn plucks at reality softly and gently touches the barrier, feeling as if it might pop any second like a soap bubble, but it holds strong - bending but not breaking. Instead, Reborn is pulled in, dispersing and losing himself instantly.

He breathes in the madness and it feels like home. After all, he's a being of chaos.

* * *

Reborn emerges from the dense storm cloud surrounding Heaven and coasts down on a double set of wings coloured a solid black. If he didn't have feathers, he'd stand out too much.

The radiation of the angel dimension (something they term Anti Tri-ni-set) is a mild irritant to someone of his power, more of a light pressure than a corrosive force.

He lands smoothly in the midst of a golden forest and folds his secondary wings. The black feathers press against his spine and trail down to the ground like a long bird's tail. He then folds his primary set and the entire ensemble looks like a cloak of feathers.

He walks the rest of the way into a well-hidden clearing, fenced off on one side by trees and blocked on the other by a large cliff and the waterfall that shapes it. Half the area is taken up by a pool of crystal clear water and the rest is long grass, flattened from a certain angel rolling around in it.

An innocent looking brunet glances up and a grin breaks out. "Reboyama, I haven't seen you in forever!"

Reborn braces himself as the angel leaps off the fallen tree he was using as a seat and throws himself at Reborn, immediately wrapping his arms and wings around the (barely) disguised demon.

"Dame-Tsuna," Reborn greets. "You're just as short as ever." He pats the other man on the head, the brunet only reaching his chest, and smirks when he hears a groan.

"You've been here five seconds and you're already throwing insults," Tsuna complains, pulling away from the one-sided hug. "Maybe I won't invite you to the market if you're going to be like this."

"I'm not here for fun," Reborn dismisses. "Now tell me all the information that the angels – that  _we_  have gathered on this mysterious human running around."

"You're so dodgy, Reboyama," Tsuna deadpans. "Sometimes I can't believe Giotto consults you."

"Your brother is a special kind of stupid," Reborn agrees. "It must run in the family. By the way, Fon wants to meet up with Alaude tomorrow at around noon, Earth central time."

Tsuna frowns. "First of all, I heard that family comment. And secondly, why are you talking to demons?"

Instead of answering the question, Reborn smiles charmingly. "I've missed you, Dame-Tsuna."

Tsuna melts like he always does. "I missed you as well."


	17. Chapter 17

Kyouya squints his eyes as the wind rushes past, making an audible whoosh every time the dragon beats his enormous wings and climbs higher, almost to the clouds. He braces one hand against the base of the dragon's foot and the other on the largest claw curled around him before shoving.

Dino looks down at his front leg, not even surprised as Kyouya somehow bests the strength of a dragon and starts squirming out. Dino tightens his grip as much as he can and tosses the human up into the air.

Kyouya reaches the peak of the throw just in front of Dino's eyes and scowls at the herbivore. Dino bravely ignores how suicidal he's feeling and flicks out his long tongue, wrapping it around Kyouya before then abruptly eating the teenager.

It's damp and too warm in the dragon's mouth, although Kyouya can appreciate the dental hygiene. He briefly considers ripping out the tonsils but doesn't want vomit on him as well as spit. He also forgoes digging his way into the lizard's brain because that just seems too messy.

Dino falls from the sky when Kyouya struggles enough to escape the long tongue and pulls out a tooth.

They hit the ground in a large field of wild grass. Kyouya is immediately spat out and Dino whimpers and whines, his huge dragon body flopping around like a walrus, crushing a large radius of flora.

"Stop whining, you herbivore," Kyouya snaps, grossed out at being drenched with saliva. "It's already grown back."

Dino covers himself with his wings and shrinks in size until he appears human once more. He pouts at Kyouya, using his human tongue to poke at his new tooth. It's still sore.

"I thought  _vampires_  ate people," Kyouya grumbles. "Not dragons."

Dino abruptly sobers then. "Kyouya, what were you doing in that place?"

"Visiting an Alpha," Kyouya deadpans and then looks around. "Now come on, where's the nearest shower; I feel disgusting."

Dino frowns and doesn't move. "What did the Alpha want with you?"

Kyouya turns to him and glares. "He's a relative and he wanted some company. He wanted to talk to me and we did and it was  _fine_ – it was nice."

Dino softens at that. "You know."

Kyouya crosses his arms defensively. "At least he only wants blood," he mutters. "Mother wants far more than that."

"Will you visit him again?" Dino questions with concern.

"Let's go," Kyouya says, pretending to not hear the question.

* * *

They decide to sell the tooth, since Dino has no use for it and it's dangerous to leave Otherside evidence lying around. Dino wraps his thin tail around the tooth and easily carries it over his head -despite it being bigger and heavier than he is- as they trudge over to the nearest motel about twenty minutes away. Kyouya steals the shower and orders Dino to wash his clothes in the meantime.

Then they take a dragon portal over to a well-known supernatural market. As soon as they step through the barrier into the market, they find a quiet corner and Dino drops the glamour on the tooth he's been carrying.

A mass of people immediately swarm them since dragon parts are rare and often make the strongest potions or rituals. Dino dives straight into negotiations like the dragon he is. He may not want the tooth, but it's in perfect condition and he suffered through getting it ripped out.

Kyouya stares in boredom as Dino plays the crowd like a professional. The teen looks around lazily and soon enough, something catches his interest. Kyouya glances at Dino and slips away into the crowd.

* * *

"Tsuna!" Takeshi cries, raising a long arm above the crowd and waving over the brunet.

"Takeshi, Ryohei," Tsuna greets back as he trots up. "How have you been?"

"Extreme!" Ryohei roars.

"Yep, saw that coming," Tsuna chuckles. "I asked Reboyama if he wanted to come but he's… uh, he's busy."

"That's okay," Takeshi says cheerfully. "I'm sure we'll meet him eventually. Heaven is big but it's not that big."

"You'd be surprised," Tsuna mutters. "Anyway, shall we go?"

Ryohei grins wide. "I know the best place to get lunch!" he bellows and dives into the crowded market place, Takeshi and Tsuna running after him to keep up.

* * *

Lambo stretches his arm over his head and groans. New bodies always leave him feeling cramped. He sighs and lets his arms drop. "Where do you want to go?"

"Dunno," Hayato drawls lazily. He lights up a cigarette with a fire conjured on his thumb. When he breathes out the smoke, it's contaminated a pitch black from the tar his body is formed with.

Lambo peers around. "Do you need anything in particular?"

"Not really," Hayato admits. "Just kind of bored. You pick."

Lambo breathes in deep and turns to the left. Hayato saunters after the cerberus, both of them disappearing into the market.

* * *

"Hibari!" the yellow fluff ball chirps.

"Yes, little one," Kyouya praises. "You got it right this time."

The tiny canary puffs up proudly on Kyouya's outstretched finger. The teenage is perched at the edge of a tall clocktower, several storeys above ground. He can almost see the entire market from here, covered in a protective dome glowing a faint, translucent pink with the occasional purple streaks.

"Hibird," Kyouya decides.

"Hibari," the canary responds in kind.

A breeze ruffles Kyouya's hair and his jacket rises off his back. Hibird stretches out its wings and takes off with the wind. Kyouya watches the yellow ball disappear into the distance, unconcerned. They'll meet each other again eventually.

A sudden swell in noise from below makes Kyouya look down. A white haired angel is bellowing loudly and a silver haired demon is snapping back. The pedestrians give them a wide berth, disturbed by the frantic energy that explodes off the buff angel and the aura of danger that seeps off the demon.

Kyouya frowns in annoyance. He dislikes noise and crowds and is very close to passing his tolerance. He stands from his low crouch and steps off the edge of the clock tower, catching an overhanging edge halfway down and then smoothly dropping the rest of the way. Onto the angel's head.

The man is knocked out cold and Kyouya brushes himself down neatly. He looks up and finds two angels gaping at him, with two demons only a couple steps further away. Everyone else has already been scared away by the man Kyouya just knocked out.

Wonderful timing. Kyouya hasn't fought either of the two races yet.

Lambo laughs nervously, recognising that scent. "I think we took a wrong turn, Hayato." He edges back, grabbing the cambion's sleeve and trying to drag the man with him.

Hayato shakes Lambo away, a scowl on his face. He's still pissed off about the moronic turf-head who bumped into him. If this brat thinks he can scare off Hayato then he's just as stupid as the angel.

Kyouya smirks.

* * *

Tsuna clasps a hand over his mouth to muffle his desperate panting and pushes back even further into the cerberus. Lambo doesn't complain about being shoved deeper into the empty cardboard box dumped into a trash pile outside of a clothing store. He's really more focused on the monster that was chasing him just seconds ago.

In another box behind the two is Hayato, nursing a wound on his side. Ryohei is presumably still lying on the ground unconscious where Kyouya left him, and Takeshi -the lucky asshole- managed to get away early on in the chase.

"I don't want to die," Lambo whimpers, clinging to the angel he just met.

"We're not going to," Tsuna says, except his words are difficult to hear over the sobbing.

Hayato rolls his eyes at the other two but it still takes him a few more minutes to hesitantly climb out of the slightly damp cardboard. He straightens his clothes, flicks a rotten banana skin off his head and strides out of the disgusting alleyway.

He is Gokudera Hayato, a powerful demon. The only ones he answers to are the Arcobaleno, the best of the best. He's not afraid of some human.

Lambo peeks over Tsuna's shoulder. "Wait, Hayato, that human smells like the - nope, okay he's already gone. Oh my Satan, this will not end well."

* * *

Hayato storms off for about ten minutes, literally just wandering blindly because he does not know where the human went but he's too prideful to return to Lambo without having taught the brat a lesson.

A fey frantically rushes past, tears in his eyes, and Hayato immediately heads for where the creature just came from. Unfortunately, he does not find the human anywhere, even after walking several blocks.

Hayato pauses abruptly and then backs up a few steps to a small gap between two empty tent stalls where there should definitely not be a glamour unless something illegal is going down. There's a salt line half hidden by the barrier, only broken by a quick swipe through the middle. So the fey wasn't running from the human.

A quiet mutter in demonic tongue and the barrier shatters like glass.

The other angel (What did the brunet call him; Takahata? Takeshi?) is cornered against the brick wall by a group of five werewolves, the other creatures already in partial shift and leering at the lone angel like he's a meal; probably instincts kicking in since the angel's left leg is heavily injured from the insane human.

The angel is smiling but it's sharp and liable to make someone bleed.

Hayato rolls his eyes because he's about eighty percent sure the dumb angel tried to save the fey and got caught instead.

Hayato hates angels but he  _despises_ assholes who rely on sheer number to bully people. He has had to deal with more than enough of that bullshit before Reborn picked him up. Plus, there's something like… shared trauma from the human that makes Hayato just a little bit more inclined to defend the angel.

"Takeshi," Hayato calls out firmly. "Come here."

Takeshi looks up at Hayato, shock clouding his features for a moment. The werewolves also look incredulous at being interrupted, especially by a demon. The angel slides past them quickly while they're distracted -limping heavily- and when he gets closer, Hayato steps in front of the other man protectively.

The runes flare to life then and Hayato goes down along with Takeshi.

* * *

"I hope they're okay," Tsuna frets, looking about the crowded streets.

Lambo has his eyes shut tightly, trying to sift through all of the smells and sounds. He catches something of Hayato but it's muffled – forcefully supressed by the heavy smell of titanium and dried blood. He curses.

"What is it?" Tsuna asks in a panic.

"Poachers," Lambo snarls, his eyes snapping open to reveal an electric green. "How fucking dare they."

There are some humans who look at the Otherside in all it's terrifying glory and decide that they want to bottle it, to put creatures in cages and treat them like pets to be kept behind glass and stared at with smugness.

It's a lucrative business since the humans who want to have their very own Otherside zoo are generally wealthy enough to buy a small country. Poachers (whether they be human or supernatural) deliver their prizes to auctions which then sell the creatures into a life of prison.

They're dolled up as they get paraded around and if they're lucky, the 'owner' takes care of them; bothers to feed them and maybe even provides a cage big enough to lie down in. And when they inevitably become boring and useless to the collector, the creatures are cut up and their parts are used as exotic decorations.

Most creatures end up choosing death instead.

Tsuna flares bright with angel grace and they both take off, weaving through the crowd. The human from before steps into their path, tonfas out, and Tsuna doesn't even hesitate to throw the teen over his shoulder because if it is poachers who took Takeshi then they deserve whatever the teenager does to them. All the fear is gone now, replaced by a protective fury.

Lambo and Tsuna arrive just in time to watch their friends get dragged through a portal. They don't stop –don't hesitate at all- just leap straight through the swiftly closing circle of runes.

They hit the ground in an empty warehouse with several reinforced cages off to one side. There are a mix of species here, mostly werewolves or humans, with around fifty in total. Half a dozen grab the unconscious Hayato and Takeshi before vanishing through yet another portal. The rest all turn to the intruders with anger.

Tsuna tightens his grip on the teen over his shoulder and then simply throws the human at the closest creature.

An albino kitsune watches this all from the sidelines, laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the next one or two chapters will go by as quick as I can make them because I just wrote Kyouya's first meeting with Reborn and it's taking everything I have to not cut out the whole poacher incident and get straight into the meeting.


	18. Chapter 18

When Dino appears in a burst of dragon fire, Kyouya is sitting off to one side with a fluffy fox in his lap.

Tsuna is standing over the teen, interrogating the kitsune on what the warehouse is and where his friend was taken. Byakuran is answering lazily, almost put to sleep by the gentle petting from the teen, but he does answer.

Tsuna doesn't know why the fox is helping when he's clearly a part of this horror, but the angel is relieved nonetheless. He's so frustrated because Takeshi is missing, and he needs to get Ryohei but he can't leave in case the demon finds something and runs off without Tsuna.

Lambo is kneeling next to where the second portal took his friend away, trying to find a stray wisp of location so he can teleport there himself. He slowly sifts through the smells in this place but there are suppressants everywhere and red herring scents on top of that just in case a cerberus like him walks in.

Lambo also has a few rune sequences and pentagrams scribbled out in blood to cover the magical side of the search, but that's just as hopeless. These people aren't amateurs, they've been doing this for a long time and they're prepared.

The fire dies down around the dragon and the occupants of the room stare. Tsuna and Lambo are worried that Dino is a poacher as well, while Byakuran watches the other Alpha cautiously and Kyouya rolls his eyes.

"What's going on?" Dino demands, striding to his wayward human.

"Some herbivores got kidnapped by poachers," Kyouya offers up, because if he didn't the others would waffle on forever. "The poachers are over there." Kyouya hooks a thumb over his shoulder to the pile of bodies against the wall.

"I noticed," Dino deadpans. "And why are you involved? With Byakuran on your lap?"

Tsuna rears back at the name, staring wide eyed at the kitsune who's still snuggled up to the human.

"I should be asking you the same, Dino," Byakuran purrs.

Tsuna chokes a little and backs up to Lambo, who's the safest one despite their races being entirely antagonistic.

"We have a location," Kyouya interrupts carelessly. "We'll head out after we find the third angel and storm the auction, bite them all to death, then go get dinner."

"We have a location?" Lambo blurts out.

"Storm the auction?" Byakuran says at almost the same time.

"Bite to death?" Tsuna squeaks.

"Let's just go get dinner," Dino tries. "I really don't think you understand what an auction is exactly, and we shouldn't get involved."

"Then explain," Kyouya commands, perfectly willing to collect more information before he hunts down the poachers that escaped him before.

Dino sighs. "The bidders are mostly humans, sometimes supernatural, the security is strong with no gaps because they're paid to be the best, there's often a huge range of creatures to buy so it'll be difficult getting them all out, and if the hunters catch wind of our intervention then we'll have to defend ourselves against them as well."

Kyouya sighs too. "I don't care what race they are, I hope the security is strong because I want a challenge, who said I was going there for the creatures, and the hunters won't be a problem because the humans present already know of the supernatural and we won't be breaking any rules."

"It can't be proven," Lambo argues. "The humans will lie, plus any hunter presence isn't good since they tend to go overboard and will probably kill the trapped supernatural regardless of the situation."

"So we finish before they arrive," Kyouya deadpans. "I really don't see what the issue is."

Byakuran chuckles and hops out of Kyouya's arms before swiftly expanding into his human form. "Well if my Kyouya wants to storm an auction then of course I'll oblige."

"Just like that?" Lambo asks worriedly. "Can we do that?"

"You can't," Byakuran says derisively. "But I can."

It's easy for those who know what they're doing. The bidders hand over their money at the door, in cash, so people can't bet over their limit and claim to pay back later. There's a dress code that changes for every auction, both as a prissy display of fashion and to weed out the ones who don't belong.

You also need an individual code to enter and a charmed amulet to get you past the set of barriers around the auction house.

Dino and Byakuran can't go in, they'd be spotted instantly as trouble and the entire venue will be moved before they even get within sight of the place. So in this case, a suppressor is needed so no one notices the angelic or demonic aura on Tsuna or Lambo. Other races are known to participate, but Heaven and Hell condemn the practice as 'mingling with weaker trash'.

"Find the third angel," Byakuran orders the two low level creatures. "Then meet at the clock tower. I'll bring what you need and explain what clothes you have to shift into later. Perhaps if you stay silent, you could pass as very mentally challenged bidders."

Tsuna and Lambo stare.

Byakuran smiles with sharp teeth and his eyes glow. "Don't keep my Kyouya waiting, now.  _Scram_."

The demon and angel stumble into their portals and escape back to the market.

Dino doesn't budge when the other Alpha turns to him. "What's your play?"

Byakuran shrugs carelessly. "I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise for you."

Dino steps forward and Byakuran matches him, but Kyouya rises swiftly from his seat on the ground and shoves both back.

"Either you fight me, or you fight no one," Kyouya says with a scowl.

Both Alphas back down immediately.

* * *

Hayato wakes in slow increments, dazed and groggy despite the loud cacophony of noise. He blinks up at the glass pane above him, and after that, the high ceiling with detailed carvings and a chandelier in the middle.

Hayato breathes through the surge of panic. It's fine, he's fine. But what about the angel? He jerks up into a sitting position and a sudden overload of information has him blinking rapidly.

The edge of the huge room is filled with connected glass boxes, only interrupted by doorways. Some are suspended from the ceiling, and three particularly large terrariums are in the middle of the room – clearly the most important ones.

Every single cage is filled with an Otherside creature, most of them banging on the glass in a desperate attempt to get out, screaming for help or mercy or just screaming because they need to do  _something_.

It's pointless trying to break out - the edges of the glass cages are scrawled with runes, alternating through different languages, but all faintly glowing with a strong power. These chains are heavy duty, built up by years of the same restrictive magics layered over and over.

All the creatures have been dressed up in what a particularly ignorant human would consider as 'traditional' clothing. Hayato is wearing a fucking leather loincloth and nothing else.

He is going to make some bitch  _burn_  for this shit.

He grits his teeth and ignores it. There's an unconscious vampire (actually snoring) in the box to his right, lying in about two inches of dark red blood because collectors are so fucking dramatic. At least Hayato only has black sand to deal with and one cleaned deer skull off to the side.

To his left is a terrarium with long, colourful feathers spread over the flooring. Back pressed against the glass nearest Hayato and long legs folded tight to his chest, is the black haired angel from before. His arms are folded on his knees and he's dressed more modestly that Hayato, wrapped in a long white toga.

"Takeshi?" Hayato calls out, shifting over.

The man murmurs something in a low voice, staring at the feathers.

"What?" Hayato asks, leaning closer. "I can't hear you."

"Angel feathers," Takeshi repeats. He laughs, humourless. "I recognise the colour. We used to play baseball together."

Hayato sucks in a sharp breath and looks at the feathers again. He can't help but imagine someone skinning Lambo and then scattering the strips of flesh over the glass box so Hayato has to sit in it and look at it and  _know_  that Lambo suffered.

It's not the feathers themselves that are the issue, it's the fact that Takeshi's friend was here, probably got sold, and then when they stopped being useful they were plucked just so the next angel would be broken before they even had an owner.

"Fuck," Hayato hisses. He shifts until he's sitting up on his calves. "Hey, look at me."

"Her parents cried a lot when she disappeared," Takeshi murmurs. "I hope my dad doesn't cry." The angel's voice breaks on the last word.

Hayato slams his fist in to the glass. " _Fucking look at me!_ " he snarls.

The angel slowly turns to face the demon, but Takeshi's eyes see straight through. Hayato mutters a few curses in the guttural demon language. He's not good at this, but no one should have to deal with that alone.

"Your friends know," Hayato tries. "My friend knows. We're not going to be stuck here, okay? This is all just temporary."

"But they don't know," Takeshi says, voice monotone. "They didn't see us get taken away."

"Lambo is a cerberus," Hayato snaps back. "Trust me, they fucking know. And if anything, you should have just left the fucking fey. No one even likes the fey! This is all your fault!"

Takeshi hunches his shoulders. "Yeah. Yeah, it is. I'm so sorry I dragged you into this." He blinks, eyes watering even as he attempts a pathetic smile in apology. "You shouldn't have helped me."

Hayato scoffs. "Don't tell me what to do, idiot. And stop that – I hate crying and you're a grown fucking angel. We've been here for like twenty minutes and you're already hopeless."

"Three hours."

Hayato pauses. "What?"

"I've been awake for one," Takeshi explains. "But the nice kappa said we got transferred in three hours ago."

Hayato follows Takeshi's nod and catches sight of the creature on Takeshi's other side, a turtle like being with humanoid features. The creature's claws are drenched in blue blood from ripping out its own throat.

So Takeshi was not only sitting in what amounts to his friend's corpse, but he was also staring at an actual corpse after talking to the creature and probably making friends with it and watching it kill itself.

"His last name was Yamamoto as well," the angel says quietly. "That's kind of cool, right?"

Hayato sighs sadly. "Oh, Takeshi."

"I won't cry," Takeshi promises, curling into himself even further and resting his head in his arms.

Hayato lets his head fall forward until his brow is pressed against the cold glass. "You can if you want to."

"No, that's fine," the angel insists. He even adds a small laugh, though it wobbles. "I'm an ugly crier anyway."

They spend a moment in silence until Hayato speaks up again. "Hell is actually pretty cold."

Takeshi sniffles. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Hayato murmurs. "Because the only sources of light or heat are the fire tornadoes. But they come with their own problems, since they just wander around Hell and if you don't move then they run right over you. Some of the stupider demons have actually made a game of it…"

Hayato doesn't stop talking, even when the doors to the large room open and people start flooding in.


	19. Chapter 19

Dino drops off Kyouya at their hotel because he's obviously too young and thus far to noticeable. Then he rushes back in time to find the two angels, one demon and a kitsune already discussing the plan.

Byakuran will lend them the money to get in, but neither he nor Dino can go inside. The Alphas are far too noticeable. Tsuna raises the issue of the angels looking similar to their older brothers, but Byakuran waves it off.

While regular, non-hunting people do know about the supernatural, they only have identification on the earth-based Alphas. The kitsune seems oddly confident about his information, but it's not strange considering he was co-operating with the poachers when Tsuna encountered him.

Byakuran passes over a briefcase of money and the group of three head out to the auction.

* * *

Tsuna is jittery the whole way there and it just gets worse when he sees the flood of security swarming around the fancy building. It's almost a mansion but with a more business like feel to it, all modern architecture with blank white walls and clean curves.

The entire place is flooded with suppression seals. If all else failed Tsuna would have fought his way to Takeshi and then crossed over into Heaven to get out but that's definitely not possible under these conditions.

The front desk in the lobby takes the briefcase of money and hands over a large orange metal circle with a number on it as an identifier. Then they're ushered through to a huge hall with a stage on one end and seats taking up the rest of the room.

The angels shift uneasily, concerned because there's already a glass box up on the stage, showcasing a fey who gets sold off rather quickly. What if they missed Takeshi or Hayato?

"They're still here," Lambo mutters. "Waiting in a back room. The bought ones go to a different room."

"Can you… tell if they're okay?" Tsuna wonders.

Lambo says nothing, because he can tell, and they're definitely not. The angel especially is not faring well at all.

Thankfully, they don't have to wait long. The creatures being displayed right now are low class ones, often snapped up quickly simply because not many care to bid on them. The later ones are more powerful or more beautiful. Glass cases pass by quickly and soon enough Takeshi is brought on stage.

Ryohei takes an automatic step forward when he sees what Takeshi is sitting on – plucked feathers from an angel. Tsuna has to reach out and grab the other man's arm. If Ryohei starts a fight, it doesn't matter if they can somehow break the glass box open, they still have to contend with security.

Just tolerate it for now, they have a plan, it's fine.

The host calls out a starting price and Tsuna raises the metal circle to bid. There are three others who bid as well but they get bored soon enough and don't bother fighting too hard.

When it finally ends Tsuna's leg are shaking despite how easy that was. Runes on the metal circle glow and it turns green to signify the loss of money. They have Takeshi.

Lambo snatches the metal circle away in preparation for Hayato. They wait and wait and wait some more but a dozen boxes go by and Hayato still hasn't shown. Lambo slowly gets more and more panicked. The starting prices have doubled since Takeshi and the bids push it too far. They won't have enough money.

Hayato finally comes out and Lambo crosses his fingers. The host introduces the newest creature and announces that Hayato is a cambion.

"Shit," Lambo hisses. They know. No wonder Hayato is so expensive.

The audience murmurs to each other and Lambo gives up. He still bids, but he's not surprised when it pushes past what they have. The host ignores Lambo, knowing that the green coloured ones can't keep up with the amount.

Hayato is carted away and Lambo looks heartbroken as his friend disappears backstage. They wait impatiently for the intermission and then rush up to Takeshi at the waiting area. Maybe they can even sneak Hayato out?

By the time they get there it's too late. Lambo splits off and chases after the van that's driving away with someone he considers his brother.

* * *

"What are we going to do?" Takeshi asks quietly, fidgeting with the gold 'bracelets' that come with every new purchase to keep the creatures in line.

Tsuna doesn't know.

"They're demons," Ryohei states. It's not an accusation or an insult, just pointing out that some choices from here will have consequences.

Consequences like punishment if another angel sees them helping. They should leave now and just be content that the cambion will probably be tortured for entertainment. They should tell their friends and laugh about it.

Demons deserve to die, everyone knows that. They were raised on these thoughts. Angle thoughts and angel beliefs and angel mentality. It's not like they get to know other races either, so all they have is the angel way and nothing gets done about it.

It's not really racism if you're truly better, right?

It's disgusting. Tsuna knows it's bad and he'll happily point it out to others when they're being wrong, but they look at Tsuna likes he's insane. Like with the Eden gate. Giotto just doesn't care that Daemon trapped Mukuro against his will, because Mukuro is now a fallen so who cares about him or his rights?

Tsuna does try, and he's tried for so long now, but he's grown exhausted and apathetic as well. It's like showing people the colour red and telling them it's called blue.

You could show a hundred people or even a thousand, but nothing would happen. It's red; everyone knows that, and suddenly you're the one who's causing trouble - the no-good brother who can't ever match up to the Alpha angel. You're the one who's wrong because why mess with a good thing? Why change when there's no need to?

It's red. Just give up.

Well fuck the lot of them, because Tsuna says it's blue.

* * *

"Someone took Hayato," Tsuna blurts out to Dino and Byakuran, the group having met up back at the markets. "Lambo ran after him."

"How unfortunate," Byakuran hums then shrugs. "Well, we tried."

Takeshi lurches forward and grabs Byakuran's arm before the man can leave. "What do you want?" he asks, eyes narrowed but a desperate tinge to his voice.

Byakuran honestly didn't think it'd be this easy but he's certainly not going to complain. He shrugs off the little angel and laughs. "I want many things, none of which you can provide."

"Why were you with the poachers?" Tsuna tries. "You want something from them, right? But – but can't be seen? So we could go in -we already know we can- and get whatever you want, if you'll help us rescue Hayato."

Byakuran pretends to consider this argument for a brief moment. "There's a woman who organises the auctions. The one you went to? That's nothing, paltry amounts and weak Otherside creatures. I want to know about the elite auctions; where they're held, who goes to them, who the poachers are."

Byakuran grabs Takeshi's wrists and stares at the gold bands that the angels couldn't manage to break off. "Do this for me and I'll rescue your little demon in distress." Byakuran smiles with sharp teeth, mouth stretching wider than it should in this body. "Fuck it up and… well, poor big brother is going to have to clean up the mess, and we don't want to make him cry, do we?"

* * *

The thing is, Byakuran already has all that he needs to get rid of her. He has the location of her houses, knows all her friends, has access to her bank accounts. He knows why she does what she does.

But. It's. Not. Enough.

He needs to destroy her. Obliterate everything she's touched. He needs to purge her filth from this plane of existence. He wants to break her open and gouge out the sludge inside and…

He wants her to feel every second of it.

Every loss, every shake as the ground underneath her crumbles. All because of Byakuran. All on his command.

So he sends out his little puppets, darling Takeshi all dolled up just the way she likes. It doesn't take long at all for Takeshi to collect the information Byakuran needs. Why would she need to be secretive in front of her pets? What can the pathetic creatures do when she has them locked up?

Byakuran saunters in unannounced and she smiles sharply when she sees him.

"Darling," she coos. "Come, come, let me show you the new bird I have."

"Oh?" Byakuran says with an empty smile. "I'd love to see it."

She learns an important lesson that day.

Don't touch Byakuran's foxes.

Because kitsune always have the last laugh.

Because karma always finds you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Byakuran pretty much planned everything out when he was sitting on Kyouya's lap. He told the auction house about Hayato being a cambion and warned them to immediately transport the demon away, then didn't give Tsuna and co. enough money to buy both so they would be forced to do whatever he says. What an asshole, right?
> 
> Also, what the hell was I on when I wrote the last chapter? Takeshi, I'm so sorry.


	20. Chapter 20

Kyouya glances away for half a second at the whisper of wind in the other room. When he looks back the open window is now the comfortable perch of a pitch-dark crow with black button eyes - shiny but empty. Its wings spread for a brief moment as it shuffles a bit on the window sill, and the light is sucked away into the feathers. Wisps for dark shadow trail the motion as the wings fold once more.

"What are you?" Kyouya straight out demands.

Dino left not an hour ago, so Kyouya presumes that the creature was watching and waiting for the best time to approach Kyouya.

The beaks parts and deep, smooth laughter escapes, somehow more attractive for the mocking edge. The crow bows forward and crumbles into black dust that swirls and reforms again, this time a snake with jutting scales but still those buttons for eyes.

"Don't look so worried," the snake murmurs, slithering across the table and deathly silent despite scales brushing across wood. "Just a minor supernatural being, nothing special."

Kyouya huffs but does take a hold of his tonfas. "You favour the faces of omens. Are you some sort of shifter that foretells death?"

The snake coils and leaps from the desk, changing form mid-air to land on the table as a sleek black cat. The cat hums as it gracefully pads over to the human. "Well if you want to get technical, I am an actual omen." It gives a cruel little smirk. "I'm often the last thing people see before dying rather unfortunate deaths."

The cat comes to a stop in front of Kyouya and sits with all the flourish of a king taking his throne. The tail flicks out behind it and swings like a pendulum. "I've heard good things about you."

Kyouya narrows his eyes, his grip tightening on cool metal. "If we're going to fight, I have to request that you turn human."

The cat makes a sound like a purr, if a purr could be condescending. "What's wrong, do you not like cats? How about something more like this?"

The creature disperses to dust once more, swirls like a black hole, and takes the form of the fluffiest, most adorable thing Kyouya has ever seen. It's puffball tail wiggles cutely, attached to a fluffy bottom, and long ears flop down to frame a small face. The buttons are still there, but the innocent blinking makes it more sweet than nightmarish.

Kyouya knows it's dangerous, the creature was hardly subtle, but that is a tiny bunny who is still shaking its little pompom tail. Kyouya lasts an admirable three seconds before literally face planting into the bunny.

* * *

"I want a penguin next," Kyouya demands. He sounds forceful despite being sprawled in the middle of the queen-sized bed, clutching a bunny to his chest and petting it gently.

"I can only shift into figures of death," the bunny says with a little twitch of its ears.

Kyouya raises his head and stares because he's certain that bunnies have no business with ending lives.

The animal smirks, its cute nose crinkling up. "Have you ever seen Monty Python?"

At Kyouya's continued stare, completely unamused, the bunny explains seriously.

"Death may be the end, but it's a transient thing in the mind of many." The being shrugs as best it can in this flesh. "Different people have different imaginations and I pick which one I want to wear."

Kyouya lets his head fall back onto the pillow. "So someone out there sees a rabbit."

"Daniel does," is offered up. "A six year old boy who loved his pet and cried for a week straight when it died. Whenever he thinks of death, he sees this form."

Kyouya sends a brief mental thank you to Daniel and scratches between the bunny's ears. "What would you turn into for me?"

A heavy weight pushes the air out of his lungs and suddenly another Kyouya is staring down at him, chains of runes in gold and black tearing across his face and  _pouring into his eyes, he's being ripped apart by the two opposing forces, there are cracks now and he's bleeding and it's redredred-_

Kyouya flings the being from him but it just twists mid-air, condensing back into that little black bunny and landing lightly on the carpet instead of being thrown through the seventh storey window of the hotel. Kyouya is standing in the next second, tonfas out and his eyes narrowed.

It chuckles wickedly, those shiny button eyes amused. "Perhaps you shouldn't ask questions when you don't want to know the answers."

Despite the plainly derisive words, it hops across the room and sits its fluffy bottom on Kyouya's foot before it nuzzles into his leg sweetly like it's trying to comfort him.

"Do that again, and you won't leave here except in pieces," Kyouya threatens, not as angry as he probably should be. If Kyouya's guess is correct, then he should have expected that kind of thing, from this creature especially.

"Oh, please don't hurt me," the being mocks. "I'm just a little omen."

"Stop that," Kyouya deadpans in irritation. He reaches down and snags the creature by the back of the neck. "You may be cute, but I would still bite you to death if I wanted to," Kyouya mutters, carrying the creature back to the bed.

Kyouya decides that the laughter is an agreement.

* * *

"How do you not know the rune for light?" the man asks, his face blurring in and out of focus, dust brushing across his lashes and changing his skin yet again.

"I just never had the chance to learn," Kyouya says defensively.

The man -now woman- hums. "I'll teach you. What do you want to know?"

Kyouya shrugs. "Something… impossible."

The woman laughs. "I shouldn't have to tell you of all people that there are no limits."

"You can't heal with demon power," Kyouya says. "Everyone knows that. Are you saying that you can somehow create a rune chain for something that cannot be defined by demonic runes in the first place?"

"You are thinking far too narrow." The woman -now man again- presses a finger to the hotel's table and drags it along in quick, sharp strokes, burning the surface of the desk. "The first rune is to rip, to unmake. The second is elongation. The third defines the second, elongate by a factor of time. The fourth is to transfer suffering, to take away with the intent to give."

The man taps the table, activating the runes, and the burned symbols disappear, the table returning to its undamaged state.

"The chain means 'unmake time continuously until all the suffering has been take away'. Or, in a less direct translation, it means to erase the wound." The creature leans back in his chair with a smirk. "Who taught you demons can't heal? How simple minded they must be."

"Fon told me," Kyouya says. It's a subtle push for more information; does this being know Fon? How well do they know Kyouya's brother? But truthfully, Kyouya is more intent on the clean table than the conversation. There are so many things he doesn't know.

The being huffs. "Yes, well, Fon is hardly the best example of the elite. Sure, he can throw a punch, but he's awful at using his head for anything greater than a headbutt."

"Teach me more," Kyouya demands, now absolutely certain about this creature's identity. "Teach me everything."

* * *

Dino returns to the hotel after a week of sneaking around the auction centers. It took far longer than he thought but he doesn't regret it. Seeing the alpha kitsune's…  _work_  first hand was definitely a good motivator to regain the power Dino lost from all those centuries of sleeping.

Dino pushes open the door to the hotel room and pauses. The room looks like… like Kyouya was alone inside and got bored.

The furniture is upturned when it's not in pieces and several new make-shift doorways have been aggressively installed into various walls. A window is smashed and a tonfa is lodged into a table, plus the large rug is ripped up and angel runes have been cut into the floor in what looks to be a rush. The dragon doesn't know much about runes but he knows a cage when he sees one.

Dino doesn't hesitate as he charges right into the destruction, worried that Kyouya might have been attacked and gotten hurt. Although the more likely reason for this is that someone attacked and Kyouya took his payment in blood and bone.

Dino finds Kyouya sitting in the middle of a trashed bed, the teenager looking manic. He has a long black feather clutched tightly, dissolving even as the teen tries to trap the escaping dust in between his cupped hands.

"Where did you get that?" Dino asks cautiously.

"I ripped it from him when he tried to leave," Kyouya says with a manic glint in his eyes.

"Who is 'he'?" Dino presses. That has demon energies, and not just a low level one. "Wait, sorry, they're  _not dead_?!"

"He's so fast," Kyouya murmurs as if he didn't hear the dragon. "I caught him off guard when he was drinking espresso, but the rune work couldn't hold him."

"Uh," the dragon drags out. "Okay, I don't know what happened, but I'm kind of routing for the demon now."

"We need to find him," Kyouya decides, still remembering that soft fur and the arrogant drawl and those quick fingers as they scrawl impossible rune chains that can force time itself to bow.

Then he's shoving past Dino into the main room and snatching up the unicorn dagger only to scrawl some angel magic into the wall. A tracker, something common enough that even Kyouya knows with his limited education.

It's specifically meant to locate the Arcobaleno (who are all arrogant enough to allow it), made popular like a trinket, often used when an angel is feeling particularly paranoid or by little children who try to scare each other.

Eight dots of light appear as cracks bleed across the wall to indicate some sort of land mark. Kyouya immediately locks onto a dot still in the human world, but scowls when the light disappears completely.

Everyone knows about the slip space between dimensions, but very rarely is someone powerful enough to dig their way into one. The runes certainly can't go that far.

The demon never gave his name, and probably never showed his real appearance even when in human form, so Kyouya is technically guessing. But really, who else could Kyouya's little bunny be except for the creature who makes sinning an art form?

Reborn will not escape a second time.

* * *

Dino has rather mixed feelings.

On one hand, the poor demon managed to escape, and Dino is whole-heartedly behind that because Kyouya is terrifying and the creature was probably so scared. On the other hand, the demon managed to escape without shedding any blood whatsoever and that's after leading a merry chase around the hotel room, so it has to be far worse than Kyouya.

Except what's worse than Kyouya?

The teen curb stomped the Varia back to Hell, probably ate Mukuro, then pimp slapped Byakuran across the face hard enough that the Vindice were unfortunate enough to be caught up in the shockwave, plus Dino is honestly still reeling that his scales got stabbed through.

Besides, that's only what Dino has heard from rumours, who knows what other kinds of horrors the teenager has done?

So… what kind of monster is Kyouya chasing?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reborn changes costumes a lot and he's the World's Greatest Hitman. Somehow this translates to him being actual death in this fic.


End file.
